Assembling the opinion: An active learning exercise for audit students

•The activity engages students in learning the different types of audit opinions.•The activity provides an active-learning environment for students to apply concepts related to different audit reports.•The activity includes working in small groups to provide a solution.•The students find the activity enjoyable and believe that it contributes to their learning experience.

“Assembling the opinion” is an in-class, small-group, active-learning exercise designed to help audit students become familiar with audit opinions. Students work in teams to “assemble” the wording of the audit opinion for a given fact scenario. The results from pre- and post-exercise assessments suggest that the active-learning exercise improves student learning. Data also suggest that students find the exercise enjoyable and believe that it contributes to their learning experience.