Two factors affecting an auditor's ability to integrate audit evidence*

. This study is an examination of auditors' ability to integrate audit evidence. Integration is defined here as identification of the meaningful relationships that exist between separate pieces of information. Failure to integrate is defined as failure to identify such relationships. Auditor subjects at four levels of experience simulated a supervisor's review of audit workpapers; the workpapers contained eight target contradictory pairs of evidence. The nature of the evidence was manipulated so that the contradicting and contradicted pieces in each pair were either in the same or different audit tests, and either used repeated wording or did not. Integration was counted when subjects wrote review notes indicating that the evidence covered by the contradictory documentation needed to be reconsidered. Failure to integrate was counted when subjects failed to point out any problem with the contradictory evidence. The results indicate that experienced auditors integrated significantly more often than inexperienced auditors. It was expected that this superior performance would carry over to contradictory items that were not proximate when encountered and that were not semantically similar. Contrary to expectations, experienced as well as inexperienced subjects failed to integrate more often when the contradictory items were in different audit tests or did not repeat wording. Some implications of these results for the design of decision aids and future research are discussed. Resume. L'auteur examine la capacite des verificateurs d'integrer l'information probante. L'integration est definie comme etant la capacite de determiner les relations significatives qui existent entre differents elements d'information. L'incapacite d'integrer est definie, elle, comme etant l'impossibilite de determiner ces relations. Les verificateurs qui ont participe a l'etude possedaient quatre niveaux d'experience; ils ont simule l'examen par le chef d'equipe des feuilles de travail d'un dossier de verification. Ces feuilles de travail contenaient huit parties cibles d'informations probantes contradictoires. La nature de l'information probante a ete manipulee de telle sorte que l'information contradictoire et l'information contredite de chaque paire etaient issues soit des memes sondages de verification, soit de sondages differents. Les cas d'integration denombres correspondaient a la situation ou les sujets indiquaient dans leurs notes de revision que l'information probante touchee par la documentation contradictoire devait etre reexaminee. Les cas de non-integration denombres correspondaient a la situation ou les sujets ne parvenaient pas a cerner un probleme quelconque a partir de l'information probante contradictoire. Les resultats indiquent que les cas d'integration sont beaucoup plus frequents chez les verificateurs experimentes que chez les verificateurs inexperimentes. On aurait pu s'attendre a ce que cette performance superieure se transpose aux elements contradictoires dont l'occurrence etait eloignee et qui ne se ressemblaient pas sur le plan semantique. Or, constatation inattendue, ni les sujets experimentes ni les sujets inexperimentes ne sont parvenus a integrer plus frequemment l'information lorsque les elements contradictoires etaient issus de sondages de verification differents ou que leur formulation etait differente. L'auteur elabore sur les consequences de ces resultats pour la conception d'aides a la decision et l'orientation des recherches a venir.