Comparing the Outcomes of Three Fraud Brainstorming Procedures

Introduction
 This article by James Hunton and Anna Gold of Erasmus University describes an experiment in which the researchers tested the application of three brainstorming procedures - nominal group, round robin, and open discussion - to determine the effectiveness of their application to the sample situation of brainstorming possible fraud risks.

Summary
 The experiment involved 150 audit clients and 2614 auditors broken into hierarchical audit teams. Each team was assigned to a specific method of brainstorming and taken through a preparatory phase in which they individually contemplated possible fraud risks. This was to reduce 'free riding' by causing each individual to come to the group with ideas already in mind, rather than coming up with them after the discussion unfolded. The three types of brainstorming were described as follows:

1. Nominal Groups - Individuals generate fraud risk lists on their own and would not actually meet with their team members. The lists would be compiled together and that final list would represent the group's brainstorming output. There would be no discussion at all and complete anonymity.
2. Round Robin - After the preparatory phase, the group would meet and go through two rounds of discussion in which each participant would read their list aloud. The second round would be for new ideas that occurred while listening to the first round. There would be no unstructured discussion and no anonymity.
3. Open Discussion - After the preparatory phase, the group would meet and participate in open, unstructured discussion about their ideas. Contribution to the discussion would be on a volunteer basis, rather than mandatory as in the Round Robin groups.

The second stage was the interaction stage, in which each team met (or compiled their lists, as with the nominal groups) and engaged in their various forms of brainstorming discussion, the end-goal being to generate a unique list of potential fraud risks. Finally, the evaluation stage was where the teams determined whether their identified list of risks warranted a change in the audit procedures of their clients - increased audit hours, tests, altered timing, etc.

Conclusions
 The researchers actually looked at hypotheses involving multiple stages of the experiment. Their findings include:

• Open discussion groups spent less time in the preparatory phase than the other groups AND generated fewer unique fraud risks on their preparatory lists.
• Open discussion groups' interaction phase tended to result in lost ideas from the preparatory phase as some members were not comfortable speaking up in the discussion.
• Nominal group and Round-Robin brainstorming achieved an apparent 'tie' in end results, both more effective than open discussion on a statistically-significant level.

The researchers go on to briefly discuss the practical implications of these findings, most notably that the commonly-used open discussion brainstorming was least effective and that some combination of nominal group and round robin procedures might yield the best of both - such as having nominal group members meet in person after submitting their lists for a round-robin discussion that might generate additional ideas.

Source
Hunton, J. E., & Gold, A. (2010). A Field Experiment Comparing the Outcomes of Three Fraud Brainstorming Procedures: Nominal Group, Round Robin, and Open Discussion. Accounting Review, 85(3), 911-935. Accessed through EBSCOHost database. Abstract available at http://aaajournals.org/doi/abs/10.2308/accr.2010.85.3.911?journalCode=accr

Academic Speed Reading (According to Cambridge University)

Introduction
This article contains a series of suggestions for effective speed-reading without losing much in terms of reading comprehension. The context of these recommendations is the academic setting, where rapid processing and future retention of new information is the primary goal.

Summary
The first portion of this text discusses a possible parallel between reading speed and comprehension, noting that individuals higher in one tend to be higher in the other, as well. Factors that reduce reading rate include word-by-word reading, vocalization, faulty eye movements (jumping to the wrong line, etc), attempting to remember everything rather than only important things, and a number of other listed items. The article notes that merely speeding the rate of reading can compound these problems, lowering comprehension and removing the reader's confidence in their command of the material, further worsening the situation in a vicious cycle.

Next, the article discusses a few basic methods by which academic readers can begin to address the above problems and increase their rate of reading. The first of these recommendations is physical - having your eyes checked and any vision defects properly corrected. Second, eliminating vocalization during reading. Even silent vocalization, where the reader sounds out words without opening their mouth or muttering in a whisper force the brain to slow down and maintain only the pace at which the tongue and lips can work, which is much lower than the rate at which the mind processes information. Third, readers should avoid regressing (rereading) - new ideas are usually explained in further detail further down the page anyway. Typical readers regress several times per page, habitually, and this slows average words-per-minute drastically. Finally, and perhaps most vitally, the article recommends developing a "wider eye-span", such that a reader is reading more than one word at a time. The brain can then interpret phrases or whole thoughts as single units instead of chaining together words one by one.

Finally, the article gives a few simple rules for dynamic reading speed adjustments. In general, readers are instructed to slow down when encountering unfamiliar terms in unclear contexts, unusual or difficult sentence/paragraph structure, abstract concepts, highly detailed technical material, or material for which detailed retention is desired. Conversely, readers should speed up when engaging simple material with few new ideas, excessive examples or illustrations, detailed elaboration about which the reader does not particularly care to know, and broad or generalized ideas and summaries.

Conclusion
The article indicates that speed reading is vital and useful for academic reading. This is interesting in light of the fact that much of the existing research on speed-reading appears to be hostile or oriented around debunking ideas of its effectiveness.

Source
Academic speed reading. University Students' Union, University of Cambridge. Available at http://www.cusu.cam.ac.uk/academic/exams/speedreading.html.