| Course | GB891 Doctoral Project II: Project Design and Implementation |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 9 |
| Paper type | Deviation report |
| Length | About 1,140 words, 7 pages double-spaced |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Purdue University Global |
| Program | MBA |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for GB891 Unit 9
Five Departures and What Each One Moved: A Unit 9 Deviation Report for a Bakery Safety Study
[Student Name]
Purdue University Global
GB891: Doctoral Project II: Project Design and Implementation
Unit 9 Deviation Report
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
Corliss Baking Company, its people and every event are composite and illustrative; the methods sources cited are real.
Why Report Deviations Separately
Every field study departs from its protocol. What distinguishes a credible study is whether departures are recorded when they happen, explained and connected to the results they affect. A limitations section written after the analysis tends to list problems in general terms, leaving readers to guess which findings they touch. This report records each departure with five elements: its date, what happened, why, how the study responded and what it changes about the interpretation of results. Each is cross-referenced to the collection log and will appear in the implementation chapter beside the measure it affects. Shadish et al. (2002) argue that threats to validity should be assessed for the specific study rather than recited from a list, and this report attempts that.
Departure One: A Supervisor Resigns
Date. Monday of week six.
What happened. The night supervisor of one intervention crew at Brierly resigned without notice. A line lead covered the crew for the remaining seven weeks, as Corliss did not fill the position until after the study ended.
Response. The research assistant continued pulse draws for the crew, since the pulse items ask about the crew's experience of supervision regardless of who supervises. Feedback sheets were not sent to the line lead, who had not been briefed or consented as a supervisor participant. The crew's weeks six through twelve are recorded as weeks without delivery.
What it changes. One of twelve intervention supervisors received feedback for only five weeks. The crew's follow-up climate score reflects a period with no supervisor and no feedback for more than half the study. Results will be computed twice, once including this crew and once excluding it. If they differ, the difference will be reported, not resolved by choosing the more favorable version.
Departure Two: A Safety Stand-Down at a Comparison Plant
Date. Thursday of week nine.
What happened. The new Dunmore plant manager, who began in week eight, held a one-hour plant-wide safety stand-down after a near miss at a slicer.
Response. The weekly initiative check recorded it, and the candidate confirmed its content with the manager: a review of hand safety at cutting equipment, a reminder to use the near-miss form and a statement that the manager wanted to hear about hazards.
What it changes. The stand-down is a contamination event, in the terms of the fidelity memo, because it delivered to comparison crews a message similar to what intervention supervisors were encouraged to convey. If Dunmore's near-miss reporting rose after week nine, the study cannot attribute the rise to the absence of feedback. The analysis will compare intervention plants with Calder alone and with both comparison plants, and will examine Dunmore's weeks before and after the stand-down separately.
Departure Three: A Week Without Observations
Date. Week seven.
What happened. One observer was ill for the full week, and the consultancy could not supply a trained replacement. Observations at Ashford were not conducted that week.
Response. The other observer covered Brierly, Calder and Dunmore as scheduled. No make-up sessions were added at Ashford, because the protocol fixes the observation schedule and make-up sessions in a later week would change the timing of observation relative to feedback.
What it changes. Ashford's observation record has a one-week gap. Because observed compliance is a secondary outcome measured weekly, the gap reduces the number of data points but does not affect the primary outcome, which is the climate survey at weeks zero and twelve.
Departure Four: Two Late Feedback Cycles
Date. Mondays of weeks four and ten.
What happened. In week four, a university email outage delayed all twelve feedback sheets until 1:15 p.m. In week ten, the research assistant was traveling and sent sheets at 11:05 a.m.
Response. Both cycles are recorded as late under the fidelity memo's thresholds. In week ten, the assistant's backup procedure, preparing sheets on Friday rather than Sunday, was adopted for the remaining weeks.
What it changes. Twenty-four of 144 planned supervisor-weeks had late delivery. Supervisors still received the sheets on the same shift day, so the effect on enactment is probably small, but the fidelity summary reports the late weeks and the analysis restricted to on-time weeks will exclude them.
Departure Five: A Merged Crew
Date. Tuesday of week eleven.
What happened. A mixer breakdown at Calder idled one line, and two Calder crews were merged for one night shift.
Response. Pulse draws that week were completed on Wednesday, after the crews had separated, and the merged shift was noted in the log.
What it changes. Very little. One shift of twelve weeks is unlikely to affect crew-level climate.
Each departure is placed beside the measure it touches, so that no reader has to guess which result a problem might have changed.
How the Departures Were Handled at the Time
Each departure was recorded in the collection log on the day it was discovered and reported to the dissertation chair within a week. None required a change to the research question or the outcomes, so none went back to the review board for amendment; the board's guidance requires amendments for changes to procedures affecting participants, and none of these changed what participants were asked or how they were protected. The candidate decided in each case whether to respond, and the decisions followed the protocol's rule that the schedule is not altered to make up lost data. That rule was tested most sharply by the missed observation week, when adding sessions later would have been easy and would have muddied the timing.
What the Departures Mean Together
Taken together, the departures affect the study's interpretation in two ways. The supervisor resignation and the late cycles reduce the dose of the intervention, which would make any effect smaller than it would be with full delivery. Dose, the amount of an intervention participants actually receive, is one of the dimensions Carroll et al. (2007) treat as essential to measure, and Durlak and DuPre (2008) found that programs delivered at higher levels obtained better outcomes. The Dunmore stand-down narrows the contrast between intervention and comparison conditions, which would also make an effect smaller. None of the departures would make an effect appear larger than it is. If the study finds a difference, the departures suggest the true effect of full delivery may be somewhat larger; if it finds none, the departures are a plausible reason the study could not detect a modest effect, and the restricted analyses described above will help separate the two readings.
References
Carroll, C., Patterson, M., Wood, S., Booth, A., Rick, J., & Balain, S. (2007). A conceptual framework for implementation fidelity. Implementation Science, 2, Article 40. https://doi.org/10.1186/1748-5908-2-40
Durlak, J. A., & DuPre, E. P. (2008). Implementation matters: A review of research on the influence of implementation on program outcomes and the factors affecting implementation. American Journal of Community Psychology, 41(3-4), 327-350. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10464-008-9165-0
Shadish, W. R., Cook, T. D., & Campbell, D. T. (2002). Experimental and quasi-experimental designs for generalized causal inference. Houghton Mifflin.
Reading the GB 891 Unit 9 instructions
Unit 9 of GB891 asks you to report every departure from your protocol. Explain why departures are reported individually rather than in a general limitations section. For each departure, give its date, what happened, why, how the study responded and what it changes about interpreting the results, naming the specific measure affected. Commit in advance to how affected data will be handled, such as running analyses with and without them. Explain how departures were handled at the time, including whether any required a review board amendment. Then consider the departures together and say in which direction they would bias any effect. Cite sources on validity threats and implementation fidelity. List departures in chronological or register order rather than by severity. Around six pages with one section per departure and a closing synthesis is a common format for this report.
Inside the GB891 Unit 9 example
The report opens by contrasting individual deviation reporting with generic limitations sections, citing Shadish and colleagues. Each departure has five parts. The Brierly resignation leaves one crew without feedback for seven weeks, with results to be computed both ways, as a margin note stresses. The Dunmore stand-down is named contamination, and Calder-only comparisons are planned. The missed Ashford observation week is not made up. Two late cycles affect 24 supervisor-weeks. A merged Calder crew affects one shift. A section explains how departures were handled at the time without board amendments. The highlighted sentence states the reporting principle, and a synthesis, citing Durlak and DuPre and Carroll and colleagues on dose, concludes that every departure could only shrink an effect.
Reading the GB891 Unit 9 grading rubric
The GB891 deviation report earns points for linking each departure to its consequence. Instructors expect each departure to carry a date, cause, response and effect on a named measure. Commitments made in advance about how affected data will be analyzed are weighted heavily, since they prevent choosing the favorable version later. Explaining whether departures required board amendments shows procedural awareness. The synthesis carries significant weight when it reasons about the direction of bias across all departures. Chronological ordering avoids any appearance of burying problems. Sources on validity and fidelity should support the reasoning. Clear cross-references to the collection log show the report rests on contemporaneous records rather than recollection.
GB891 Unit 9 help: mistakes that cost points
Many GB891 deviation reports list problems without saying which result each one affects, leaving readers to guess. Others describe departures but not the study's response at the time. Students often decide how to handle affected data only after seeing results. The direction in which departures bias an effect is rarely considered. Contamination of comparison groups is described as background noise. Reports sometimes order departures by severity, which can look like minimizing. Give each departure its date, cause, response and affected measure, commit to analysis choices in advance, explain board reporting, reason about bias direction, use chronological order and cite sources. If departures occurred in your study, a writer can help you report them.
Get a GB891 Unit 9 example written to your instructions
Share your deviation notes or collection log, your protocol and the Unit 9 prompt with its rubric. The sample report pairs every departure with its consequence and a committed analytic response, and leaves each date, count and approval cell open for entries from your own records. Ready within 24-48h, first custom sample free. The paper above is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Purdue University Global document.
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GB891 Unit 9 questions, answered
Are the deviations in the sample real events?
No. They illustrate the kinds of departure a complete report handles: staff turnover, contamination, weather, late delivery, an observer change. Every date, count and approval status is bracketed, because the actual deviations in your project are known only to you and must come from your own log. The sample shows the form such a report takes, never the content of your fieldwork.
Should deviations be ordered by severity?
Most reviewers prefer chronological or register order, since reordering by importance can look like an attempt to bury the worst. A summary matrix can then show which deviations matter most for which outcomes. That combination keeps the account honest and still gives the committee a quick view of where the evidence is weakest.
When must a deviation be reported to the review board?
It depends on the board's rules. Many require prompt reporting of changes affecting risk, consent or procedures, and some require amendments before a change is made. Your board's policies decide, and the report should state which deviations fall under them while leaving submission status for you to record. Where the rules are unclear, many candidates ask the board office directly.
Where can I find a free GB891 Unit 9 sample paper?
This page carries a full GB891 Unit 9 deviation report for a bakery safety study, setting five protocol departures beside the measures they affect.
In which direction do typical departures bias an effect?
Reduced delivery and contamination of comparison groups both narrow the difference between conditions, so they tend to make an effect look smaller than it would be with full delivery.