Fostering Creativity in Audit through Co-Created Role-Play.

Abstract

Graduate auditors now require new skills and capabilities centered around creativity and innovation, and the ability to think and see things in novel and unfamiliar ways. Developing these skills requires a shift in audit education where traditional barriers to student creativity are removed. A powerful way of providing students with the opportunity to develop creativity skills is through the implementation of an authentic role-play. Although role-play has been used previously in audit education, it is often applied in a structured, formal way that often adopts a case approach and limits student creativity. In contrast, this study integrates students as co-creators of their learning making use of innovative role-play design. This paper aims to address the neglected role of creativity in audit education by exploring how the implementation of a unique co-created role-play learning strategy impacts student perceptions of creativity skill development. This role-play allows students to interact with a performance artist and encourages students to bring their own interests, lived experiences, and audit context into the development of a storyboard and role-play performance. A survey of 313 students who completed the role-play learning strategy shows that students perceived enhanced creativity and human skills and reported high levels of engagement, motivation, and enthusiasm. Findings also indicate that some students experienced difficulties with the ambiguity and relatively unstructured nature of the learning strategy. Overall, the findings of this study suggest that co-created role-plays enhance creativity skill development and provide students with a relevant and enriching educational experience.