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Research Article

The Effect of Measurement Scales on the Evaluation of Auditors' Audit Planning Judgments

Han, Jinsu

Published: January 1990 · Vol. 19, No. 2 · pp. 117-136
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Abstract

This study investigated through a laboratory experiment the effects of measurement scales on judgmental consensus and judgmental stability in measuring the degree of agreement among auditors' judgments. By simultaneously using a seven-point interval scale and a ratio scale, the responses of certified public accountants to hypothetical audit judgment cases were analyzed. The results showed that for judgmental consensus, the seven-point interval scale yielded significantly higher correlation coefficients than the ratio scale, while judgmental stability was not affected by the measurement scale. Based on the results of this study, it can be concluded that in comparing and analyzing the results of prior research in this field, the measurement scales used in each study must be considered in addition to the research domain, and that so-called experts, namely CPAs, make very similar decisions under identical audit judgment situations.