ABSTRACT

This chapter presents the results of the interviews with regards to the evidence evaluation approach employed by auditors in practice. It focuses on reporting the results of the interviews carried out with some experienced auditors with regards to the audit approach to find out whether auditors follow a belief revision approach in their evaluation of evidence. The analysis of the interviews indicated that in practice auditors follow an open mind approach in their evaluation of evidence. K. Church argues that auditors often inherit or generate beliefs to guide their search for evidence. He claims that diagnostic beliefs guiding the collection and evaluation of evidence could be formulated from prior year's working papers. The analysis of interviews reveals that auditors do not want to be described as belief revisers even if they have initial beliefs. The initial belief could take the form of a likelihood assessment, or it could take the form of an expected cause of fluctuation.