Reducing Overconfidence in Spreadsheet Development
Human-Computer Interaction
2024-12-31 v1 Software Engineering
Abstract
Despite strong evidence of widespread errors, spreadsheet developers rarely subject their spreadsheets to post-development testing to reduce errors. This may be because spreadsheet developers are overconfident in the accuracy of their spreadsheets. This conjecture is plausible because overconfidence is present in a wide variety of human cognitive domains, even among experts. This paper describes two experiments in overconfidence in spreadsheet development. The first is a pilot study to determine the existence of overconfidence. The second tests a manipulation to reduce overconfidence and errors. The manipulation is modestly successful, indicating that overconfidence reduction is a promising avenue to pursue.
Cite
@article{arxiv.0804.0941,
title = {Reducing Overconfidence in Spreadsheet Development},
author = {Raymond R. Panko},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0804.0941},
year = {2024}
}