A Classroom Exercise on Building Auditors' Interview Skills

Abstract

ABSTRACT This instructional resource describes a classroom exercise that assists students to understand the importance of performing interviews for auditors. The exercise allows students to practice their interview skills in the context of a business continuity problem. Students are assigned to groups of two and are randomly chosen to play the role of either an auditor or a director of information technology in a client corporation. In this setting, the auditor needs to understand the audit client's business continuity strategies and practices from the director's perspective without being able to observe or obtain detailed information. This exercise contributes to the development of students' ability to interview, which is an important soft skill in the audit process. In addition, this exercise can be administered at different levels of auditing or accounting information systems courses to bring more hands-on learning activities to the classroom.