A Top CPA in south Lubbock, TX explains Basic Financial Accounting Reporting Practices
As accounting concepts become more complex, assessing the faithfullness of accounting representations of economic phenomena become increaingly difficult, and separating relevance or effectiveness from reliabliity becomes much more difficult than in examples on our blog. Social scientists and the best CPAs in Lubbock, TX have much discussed the concept of representational faithfulness in connection with educational testing, and though that field may seem remote from accounting, the difficulties that beset it in some respects bear a close resemblance to some of those encountered in accounting in general.
If, for example, two top students score 640 and 580, respectively, in a scholastic aptitude test or south Lubbock CPA entrance exam, it is inferred that the first student has more verbal aptitude than the second. But does the test really measure verbal aptitude? Is it, in other words, a valid test of verbal aptitude? That is a very difficult question to answer, for what is verbal aptitude? Without a definition of the quality to be measured, the validity of the test cannot be assessed. The problem of defining intelligence and of judging whether intelligence tests validly measure it may be even more difficult because of the many different manifestations of intelligence, the problems of separating innate and acquired abilities, standardizing for differences in social conditions, and many other factors. Contact our Lubbock CPAs today for more info and to get started with a consultation.
The nature of the problem just described can be clarified by means of an example. A spelling test is administered orally to a group of students. The words are read allowed by the testers and written down by the students. A student with poor hearing, as a result of spelling more poorly due to not hearing the words correctly, lacks true representational faithfulness.
