The effects of decision aid structural restrictiveness on decision-making outcomes

Abstract

This study examines the effects of structural restrictiveness embedded within a decision aid on users' decision-making outcomes. Decision aids are often used to direct users' attention to items prompted by the decision aid (Bonner, Libby, and Nelson, 1996;Butler, 1985); but, in most instances, it is impossible to prompt for all possible items that should be considered in making a decision

On the Use of Checklists in Auditing: A Commentary

“…Our review of existing audit research indicates that procedural checklists are generally thought to perform satisfactorily; whereas, there is a widely held view that the use of diagnostic checklists for fraud risk assessment in financial audits yields dysfunctional outcomes (e.g., Hogan et al 2008;Jamal 2008), and that this view is spreading to other uses of checklists (e.g., Wheeler and Arunachalam 2008;Seow 2011). However, we believe that abandoning the use of checklists, such as red flag checklists, in favor of unaided judgment may not be the best option for large firms with multilocation audits that require a degree of standardization and coordination.…”

“…Results of experimental studies examining the use of fraud ''red flag'' checklists (Pincus 1989;Asare and Wright 2004;Seow 2009) are interpreted as providing evidence that checklists are ''harmful rather than helpful in detecting fraud'' (Jamal 2008, 103), and that they ''restrict the auditor's generation of ideas'' for fraud detection (Hogan et al 2008, 239-240). Also, recent papers question the effectiveness of checklists for audit and tax professionals, such as Seow (2011) for an internal control evaluation task, and Wheeler and Arunachalam (2008) for a tax research task. These authors argue that checklists increase confirmation bias and focus the user's attention solely on cues included in the checklist.…”

An Investigation into the Effect of Job-Aid Design on Customer Troubleshooting Performance

“…Th is line of reasoning, however, has been challenged by researchers who argue that these restrictions can hinder users from thinking outside Volume 30, Number 2 / 2017 DOI: 10.1002/piq 99 the boundaries of the job aid (Seow, 2011 ). CLT supports this argument through the concept of the expertise-reversal eff ect (Kalyuga, Ayres, Chandler, & Sweller, 2003 ) that occurs when knowledgeable learners fail to benefi t and may even suff er from instructional formats that work successfully with less knowledgeable learners.…”

Developing a Cognitive Assistant for the Audit Plan Brainstorming Session

“…Seow (2011) shows that the more structurallyrestrictive decision aid imposes more limits on users' decision-making process and induces biases because users are forced to adapt their decision-making to match the guidance in the tool. This type of decision aid reduces users' ability to identify new items that did not appear in the tool when users focus only on the items prompted by the tool and fail to adequately consider other possibilities in a particular situation (Seow, 2011;Asare and Wright, 2004;Dowling and Leech, 2007). A checklist with standard items cannot cover all risks for a specific client; therefore, in the brainstorming sessions, checklists may limit auditors' ideas in identifying new potential risks.…”

“…During the brainstorming stage, the engagement team members exchange ideas about how and where they think the client's financial statements may be susceptible to material misstatement due to fraud and how management could perpetrate and conceal fraudulent reporting or misappropriate assets (Beasley and Jenkins, 2003). Considering the importance of the brainstorming session and the limitation of existing audit decision support tools for the process (Dowling and Leech, 2007;Seow, 2011;Landis, 2008), in this paper, a cognitive assistant framework is developed for the audit plan brainstorming session with the objective of providing timely information retrieval and decision-making support for audit engagement team members.…”