The Effect of Learning Styles on the Auditor's Performance with the Approach of Mediator Skills Multidimensional Model

Learning styles are individual competencies and priorities that affect how information is perceived, collected, and processed. In fact,The subject of learning is one of the basic concepts in cognitive psychology theories, which plays an essential role in people's decision making. Learning is usually interpreted as a beneficial process in which the learner actively directs his learning process by approaching information and relating it to his previous knowledge. Although learning is an event process that leads to the achievement of a specific result, by identifying the learner's style and preferred learning methods, one can achieve the successful performance of the individual in information processing. Therefore, learning styles are prominent and distinctive features that are stable to a certain extent that show how learners perceive learning from the surrounding environment and respond to it. These styles are beliefs, preferences and behaviors that are used by people to help them learn in a given situation. Behavioral research in auditing shows that individual psychological differences have an impact on the analysis of evidence and making decisions and the professional judgment of auditors, so that the auditors' cognitive skills and efforts in the auditing process play an important role in improving It has audit quality. Because audited financial statements with high quality, as one of the useful information in decision-making, reduces investment risk, therefore, the performance and professional judgment of auditors are influenced by psychological factors. Takes so that learning styles such as abstract conceptualization styles and objective experience have an effect on how auditors process information, make decisions, and perform properly. Therefore, determining learning styles helps auditors to improve their strategies in collecting, processing information and making useful decisions, in addition to proper training and learning of professional principles and procedures, and thus making judgments. Improve their professional. Therefore, the study of learning styles in auditing is important because the auditor's proper perception of his performance through the influence of learning styles makes the auditor take steps to improve the quality of auditing. In this regard, the purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of learning styles with the approach of the Mediator Skills Multidimensional Model on auditor performance.

The method of the present research is a descriptive survey and, from the perspective of the purpose, it is of applied research that the standard questionnaire has been used. The research sample is 517 auditors working in the auditing organization and auditing firms, members of the Iranian Society of Certified Public Accountants in 2020, who were selected by simple random sampling. Also, research hypotheses were tested by modeling structural equations using PLS software.

In the field of psychology, people have different abilities in learning, so the learning of people in the same situation is different, which is due to different learning styles. learning styles in the mediation skills model include the beliefs, preferences, and behaviors that individuals used to improve their learning. Thus, learning styles affect auditors' beliefs about their ability to do things successfully, as well as their professional decisions and judgments. Therefore, to achieve the purpose of this study, first, the correlation between learning styles based on the model of mediator skills and auditor performance was evaluated. The results of the Pearson correlation test show a significant relationship the between research variables. Then, the impact of learning styles on the auditor's performance through structural equation modeling was investigated. The findings of the present research show that learning styles with the approach of the Mediator Skills Multidimensional Model have a significant effect on auditor performance. Also, abstract sequential conceptualization styles, concrete sequential experience, abstract random conceptualization, and concrete random experience have the greatest impact on the auditor's performance, respectively.

The results of this study show that learning styles affect the performance of the auditor. Therefore, the results of the research can improve the decision-making and professional judgment of the auditor and introduce the concepts of learning theory based on the Mediator Skills Multidimensional Model into the behavioral research texts in auditing. According to the findings of this study, auditing firms are recommended to auditors with learning styles of consecutive abstract conceptualization and consecutive objective experience due to the type of their learning characteristics and having the highest impact factor, for multiple tasks (analytical and intuitive) to operate. In addition, measures should be taken to improve the professional rank of auditors, in addition to focusing on technical skills and other general competencies, the type of their learning style should also be considered. Also, policymakers in the auditing profession are advised to hold specialized and educational seminars to make auditors aware of the impact of learning styles on improving the decision-making and judgment process in the auditing profession.