Craig Emby

The “Shock” Factor in Students’ Performance in Accounting Examinations

Abstract This paper examines, in an accounting context, possible bias due to students’ receiving questions in course-coverage order versus random order. This paper extends prior research by combining longitudinal analysis with an independent measure of student ability to examine the interaction between ability and question order by student scores where some students receive questions in consecutive examinations in the same order pattern whereas other students receive questions in consecutive examinations in different order patterns. The results show what could be termed a “shock” factor. This “shock” factor interacts with student ability to the benefit of higher-ability students and to the detriment of middle-ability students. The performance of lower-ability students was not affected.

Empirical evidence from an inter-industry descriptive analysis of overall materiality measures

This study presents an empirical cross-industry descriptive analysis of overall quantitative materiality measures. We examine the behaviour of four commonly used quantitative materiality measures within and across industries with respect to their size, relative size and stability, over ten years. The sample consists of large- and medium-sized European companies, representing 24 different industry categories for the years 1998 through 2007 (a total sample of over 36,000 data points). Our results show that these four materiality measures are variable with respect to size and stability over time, both across industries and to a lesser extent within industries. There are similarities to, and differences from, the results of US-based research two decades earlier. Our results suggest that fruitful avenues for future research may exist both cross-sectionally and longitudinally-cross-sectionally, in investigating the relationship between industry membership, characteristic business processes in a specific industry, and materiality measures; longitudinally, in identifying the main drivers that contribute to the volatility of these materiality measures over a period of time.