Assessing the Efficiency and Effectiveness of a Formula Expression Evaluator: A Spreadsheet Error Reduction Tool.

详细信息   

• 作者：LaNata ; Arthur L. J. ; Jr.
• 学历：D.B.A.
• 年：2014
• 毕业院校：Northcentral University
• Department：School of Business and Technology Management
• ISBN：9781321096248
• CBH：3631242
• Country：USA
• 语种：English
• FileSize：1678639
• Pages：187

文摘

Microsoft's spreadsheet software (Excel) is utilized extensively to track,manage,and report on the financial aspects of most corporate businesses； current estimates exceed 500 million spreadsheet users worldwide. Recent studies reveal that these spreadsheets are easily corrupted and are highly error-prone； on average,94% contain errors with formula error-rates running as high as 5.2%； cognitive error studies suggest these percentages are normal and to be expected. This situation provides motivation for research into the development of new and innovative tools that facilitate error reduction. Hence,the goal of this quantitative experimental study was to bridge the gap between current spreadsheet error-correction tools and the need for new innovative tools. The study explored the application of state-of-the-art LR parser technologies as a means of developing a spreadsheet error detection and correction tool that detects syntactical errors in formula cells and identifies possible corrective action. The prototype provides developers and end-users error correction functionality that is incremental to the tools currently available to the spreadsheet user/development community. Operationally the tool displays the underlying structure and components of excel formulas,identifies syntactical errors,and provides a visual representation of anomalies. In order to test the concept,a quantitative laboratory experiment was conducted with 62 business students from a major university； the study empirically tested the cognitive fit between the prototype error-correction tool (formula expression evaluator) and the error correction task. The findings of the experimental laboratory study demonstrated that the use of the formula expression evaluator tool provided users significant error detection and correction performance improvements over unassisted spreadsheet error detection and correction performance.