Ahmad Faisal Hayek
Background of this study was based on the controversy that there were gap between society and the external auditor regarding, the auditor’s responsibilities, audit procedures, level of assurance the auditor provides with the issuing of the audit report opinion and the management Board’s responsibilities within the company. This controversy motivated the researcher to investigate the existence of audit expectation gap among Accounting Undergraduate and understand it as well. The study aims to understand the effect of audit education on the audit expectation gap in UAE’s accounting graduate students. The study employ quantitative approach and questionnaire was created and divided into two sections. The first section contained three Statements. The second part dealing with the various aspects of the auditing process, that, in the researcher’ opinion, highlights differences in views and expectations for different categories of respondents. The second section contained 13 semantic differential belief statements. Each of the statements in the second section is evaluated using the five-point Likert scale enabling respondents to choose their level of agreement on a scale of 1-5. A questionnaire was created, dealing with the various aspects of the auditing process, that, in the researcher’ opinion, highlights differences in views and expectations that different categories of respondents have concerning the following: The result show that audit education plays a significant role in narrowing existing audit expectation gap in UAE. Accounting students who completed auditing courses are aware about the responsibility of auditors, the role of company management to prepare financial report for their organizations, audit reliability, and decision usefulness. The findings of this study suggest that the audit education should play a larger role to reduce audit expectation gap. The paper contributes to the existing literature by presenting evidence of the effects of audit education on reducing the AEG in the UAE context.