Auditor efficiency and effectiveness with diagrammatic and linguistic conceptual model representations

Abstract The differences in efficiency, effectiveness, ease of use, and user satisfaction among auditors using diagrammatic and linguistic conceptual model representations were investigated. The diagrammatic conceptual model was the entity–relationship (ER) model [Batini C, Ceri S, Navathe SB. Conceptual database design: an entity relationship approach. Redwood City, CA: Benjamin/Cummings, 1992.]. The linguistic conceptual model was an informationally equivalent Backus–Naur Form (BNF) grammar (as described in Batini et al., 1992). The conceptual model representation was manipulated in an experiment containing three types of tasks: search, recognition, and inference. Participants in the study were 46 first year auditors employed by a Big 5 accounting firm, who were enrolled in an accounting information systems course in a graduate accounting degree program. Results indicate that participants considered the ER model easier to use, used it faster, and were more satisfied with it, than the BNF grammar. However, there were no significant differences between representations with respect to accuracy.