Students as surrogates for practicing accountants: Further evidence

This study extends our understanding of the circumstances in which the use of student surrogates is appropriate in accounting research. Prior research suggests caution using students for unstructured and complex experimental tasks, however their suitability for structured tasks is not so clear. Employing an experimental design, this study examined the effect of knowledge differences on a structured task requiring accounting classification judgements across three research participant groups: professional accountants, advanced level accounting students and engineering students with no accounting knowledge. The findings support the use of advanced level accounting students as surrogates for accounting practitioners in relatively structured decision contexts.