| Abstract | Data is quickly becoming an enormous asset for companies, and businesses are making significant capital expenditures to enhance their data-capturing capabilities for both customerfacing and backend processes, creating Big Data sets. The availability of this data is already affecting the way that auditors approach risk assessment and evidence-gathering, so it is important to understand how the data analytics audit procedures used with Big Data change the way auditors perform. Prior research has not explored how data analytics and Big Data affect the auditor in a practical setting, so this study using student auditors examines the effects of using a data analytics mindset versus a traditional audit mindset when performing an audit procedure. The study examines the dependent variables of auditor performance, information overload, professional skepticism, confidence and calibration and finds that auditor mindset has an inconclusive effect on all of the tested dependent variables. The study also offers conclusions and areas of possible future research. |
