least as important to external auditors as the amount of
internal audit experience.
Table 2 contains a decision aid to evaluate internal audit
competence. It consists of a list of 10 yes/no questions derived
from audit standards as well as from the literature
and research studies discussed above. For each question,
a ‘‘yes” response reflects positively on competence and a
‘‘no” response reflects negatively on competence. While
any rating mechanism would be arbitrary, an approach
suggested in the appendix is to give a ‘‘Strong” rating for
internal audit competence when there are 9 or 10 ‘‘yes” responses,
a ‘‘Fair” rating for 6 to 8 ‘‘yes” responses, and a
‘‘Weak” rating with 5 or fewer ‘‘yes” responses