Applying code inspection to spreadsheet testing
Journal of Management Information Systems - Special section: Strategic and competitive information systems
Spreadsheet presentation and error detection: an experimental study
Journal of Management Information Systems - Special issue: Information technology and its organizational impact
Expert and Novice End-User Spreadsheet Debugging: A Comparative Study of Performance and Behaviour
Journal of Organizational and End User Computing
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Several well-founded concerns exist about the integrity and validity of electronic spreadsheets. One hundred thirteen MBA students sought eight errors planted in a single-page spreadsheet to discover if differences in the presentation format would facilitate error-finding performance. Five presentation formats were used. Spreadsheets were presented on the screen, both with and without formulas. Spreadsheets were also presented on paper with a list of formulas attached, or without formulas. A new integrated formula paper treatment was introduced, with formulas presented in each cell directly under each calculated value. Subjects found, on average, only about 50% of the errors across all presentation formats. The on-screen treatments were clearly inferior to the paper treatments, whether or not formulas were presented. Practitioners should be aware of the difficulties in finding even simple errors, especially on-screen, and should develop training programs to facilitate spreadsheet auditors' performance.