Introducing machine learning in auditing courses

The advances in machine learning have gained close attention from audit practitioners and standard setters. However, fewer than half of accounting programs teach predictive analysis, including machine learning. To develop students’ knowledge and skills of machine learning in auditing applications, this study introduces machine learning to the accounting curriculum and presents a novel hands-on approach for teaching machine learning in auditing courses. The objective is to provide students who have no statistics background and programming skills with the basic knowledge of machine learning and hands-on exercises for predicting auditing tasks. In addition to instruction manuals, this study demonstrates an implementation of machine learning exercises in a graduate-level auditing course.