21

(shown in Column 7 of Table 3). Differences are not concentrated on either side of the probability scale. Three of the expression-pairs with significant differences have mean probabilities greater than 50% and five have means less than 50%. Differences exist between the CPAs and WPs in the evaluation of“expected” and both German translations of“expected” (“voraussichtlich” and“erwartet””), and in the evaluation of“not expected” and“nicht erwartet”. There is also a difference between“not probable” and“nicht wahrscheinlich” and“no longer probable” and two translations of this expression(“nicht mehr erwartet” and“nicht mehr wahrscheinlich”). However, no overall difference arises when“no longer probable” is translated as“voraussichtlich nicht mehr.” Differences also exist between the CPAs’ assessment of “assurance” and the WPs’ assessment of“Gewissheit,” with the WPs attaching a much higher probability to the German term, and between“seriously in question” and“sehr zweifelhaft,” where the WPs attach a much lower probability to the German expression.

To test Hypothesis 2(culture effect), the mean point-estimates for the CPA and WP/English groups were compared. Post-hoc comparison tests show that means are significantly different for nine of 16 comparisons(Table 3, Column 8).* For all but two of these items (“assurance” and“remote”), the WPs’ mean responses were lower than those for the CPAs.

WPs assign a significantly higher probability to“assurance”(the highest probability for WPs) and do not assign as low a probability to“remote” as do the CPAs(the lowest probability for CPAs).

Because both groups were evaluating uncertainty expressions in English, these differences can be

2 There was an insufficient number of CPAs indicating a high level of familiarity with IAS to warrant a similar test for this group. 3 A significant difference exists for 12 of 21 items in Column 8. However, three of these significant items are duplicates(“expected” is translated into two German expressions,“no longer probable” is translated three different ways), thus there are really only nine