AN ANALYSIS OF COMPARISON QUESTIONS IN THE CONTEXT OF AUDITING

Within the cognitive sciences, two taxonomies for classifying questions have been proposed (Graesser, Lang, & Horgan,1988; Lehnert,1978). Both have neglected to include a category for comparison questions. We provide a definition of comparison questions and show how they related to the semantic categories of the two taxonomies. We present examples of comparison questions posed by auditors who are attempting to learn about a company during the initial stages of an audit. Comparison questions are particularly important to auditors because they uncover discrepencies and they focus the auditors’ search for information. Auditors are concerned with diagnosing the financial health of a company on the basis of symptoms and financial indicators of the company'S performance. These critical comparisons involve comparison in performance of a company over time and comparison between a company and industrial averages. The auditor'S use of comparison questions is closely linked to the diagnostic process. © 1990, Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. All rights reserved.