| Course | GM501 Management Theories and Practices II |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 2 |
| Paper type | Evidence appraisal |
| Length | About 1,100 words, 7 pages double-spaced |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Purdue University Global |
| Program | MS in Management |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for GM501 Unit 2
Seventy Percent of What? A Unit 2 Evidence Appraisal of the 70-20-10 Learning Model
[Student Name]
Purdue University Global
GM501: Management Theories and Practices II
Unit 2 Evidence Appraisal
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
The rental company, its proposal and its figures are composite and illustrative; the sources appraised are real.
The Claim and the Question
The proposal, prepared by the company's operations finance team, recommends cutting the classroom training budget for branch service technicians by 40 percent and replacing it with structured on-the-job assignments. Its supporting paragraph reads: "Research shows that 70 percent of learning comes from on-the-job experience, 20 percent from coaching and feedback, and only 10 percent from formal training. Our spending is the reverse of that." The company employs about 900 technicians across 160 branches who maintain and repair aerial lifts, excavators, generators and compressors. New technicians currently attend six weeks of classroom and shop training in their first year.
The appraisal question is narrow: does the evidence behind the 70-20-10 ratio support cutting formal training for these technicians?
Tracing the Ratio
The original research. In the 1980s, researchers at the Center for Creative Leadership interviewed successful executives about the experiences that had most shaped their development. Executives described challenging assignments, difficult bosses and hardships far more often than formal programs, and the findings were reported in The Lessons of Experience (McCall et al., 1988). The study asked executives to recall key events; it did not measure how much of their learning came from each source.
The popularization. The specific proportions appeared in a development planning guide published in the following decade, which advised that about 70 percent of development should come from experience, 20 percent from other people and 10 percent from courses (Lombardo & Eichinger, 1996). The guide presented the ratio as practical guidance, not as a measured result.
The spread. From there the ratio moved into consulting materials, corporate learning strategies and conference talks, usually described as research-based.
The 70-20-10 ratio began as executives' memories of what had mattered most to them and became, through repetition, a measured fact about how everyone learns.
Rating the Evidence
Evidence-based management asks four questions of any source: what design produced it, who was studied, what was measured, and how directly it addresses the claim at hand (Barends & Rousseau, 2018). Applied to the sources behind the ratio:
1. McCall and colleagues (1988). Design: retrospective interviews. Sample: successful senior executives in large firms. Measured: which events executives recalled as developmental. Tests the ratio: no.
2. Lombardo and Eichinger (1996). Design: practitioner planning guide. Sample: none reported. Measured: nothing; the proportions are advice. Tests the ratio: no.
3. Consulting and corporate materials. Design: secondary summaries. Sample: none. Measured: nothing new. Tests the ratio: no.
4. Clardy (2018). Design: a review of the model's origins and the research cited in its support. Sample: published literature. Measured: whether evidence exists for the proportions. Tests the ratio: yes, and finds no empirical basis for the specific numbers.
Andrew Clardy's review is the most direct scrutiny the model has received. It concludes that informal learning is important and widely underrated, but that the 70-20-10 proportions have never been measured and cannot be treated as a research finding (Clardy, 2018).
Does It Transfer to Branch Mechanics?
Even if the ratio held for executives, three differences make transfer doubtful.
The kind of learning. Executive development, as McCall and colleagues studied it, concerns judgment, relationships and handling ambiguity, skills built through experience. A technician must learn hydraulic systems, electrical diagnostics, manufacturer specifications and safety procedures. Much of that is codified knowledge that can be taught more efficiently in a structured setting than discovered on the job.
The cost of learning by doing. An executive who learns from a failed assignment loses time. A technician who learns by trial on an aerial lift's hydraulic system may damage a machine worth more than $100,000 or create a safety risk for the next renter.
The readiness of the workplace. Experiential learning depends on someone experienced being available to guide it. Branch records show that about a third of branches have only one senior technician, who already spends most of the day on repairs.
What the Company's Own Data Show
The company has some evidence of its own. Technicians who completed the full six weeks of first-year training had 22 percent fewer repeat repairs, the same machine returning with the same fault within thirty days, than those who started before the program existed. That comparison is not an experiment, since the two groups differ in hiring year and branch, but it points in the opposite direction from the proposal.
Why the Ratio Persuades Anyway
The ratio is easy to remember, it flatters what most managers already believe about their own careers, and it arrives with an institutional name attached. It also offers a budget conclusion in a single sentence. Those are reasons a claim spreads, not reasons it is true. A finance team looking for savings has every reason to find the ratio convincing, which is exactly when a decision needs a second look at the source.
What Better Evidence Would Look Like
Evidence that could support the proposal would compare technicians trained mainly on the job with technicians trained mainly in the classroom, doing the same work, and measure results that matter to the company: repeat repairs, safety incidents, time to work without supervision and retention. Randomizing which branches change first would remove most of the bias in a simple before-and-after comparison. No published study of the 70-20-10 ratio does this, but the company could, at modest cost, within a year.
What the Appraisal Supports
The evidence supports two modest claims. Informal and experiential learning matter a great deal, and the company may be underusing structured assignments and mentoring. That point is consistent with the executive research and with Clardy's review. But the evidence does not support the specific proportions, does not show that formal training is less effective than experience for technical skills, and does not transfer cleanly from executives to technicians.
Recommendation
The proposal should not cite 70-20-10 as research, and the 40 percent cut should not proceed on that basis. A better approach would keep the core classroom and shop training for technical and safety content, add structured on-the-job assignments with named mentors, and test the change in a set of branches by comparing repeat repair rates and time to independent work against branches that keep the current program. If structured experience proves as effective for some content, the classroom time for that content can be reduced on the strength of the company's own results.
References
Barends, E., & Rousseau, D. M. (2018). Evidence-based management: How to use evidence to make better organizational decisions. Kogan Page.
Clardy, A. (2018). 70-20-10 and the dominance of informal learning: A fact in search of evidence. Human Resource Development Review, 17(2), 153-178. https://doi.org/10.1177/1534484318759399
Lombardo, M. M., & Eichinger, R. W. (1996). The career architect development planner. Lominger.
McCall, M. W., Jr., Lombardo, M. M., & Morrison, A. M. (1988). The lessons of experience: How successful executives develop on the job. Lexington Books.
Reading the GM 501 Unit 2 instructions
In GM501's second unit you appraise the evidence behind one specific claim used in a real decision. Quote the claim as it appears and state the appraisal question narrowly. Then trace the claim backward to its origin, following citations until you reach the first source. For each source, record its design, its sample, what it measured and whether it tested the claim at all. A short evidence table makes the pattern visible. Look for a review that has examined the claim directly. Next, ask whether the evidence transfers to the people and work in your case, considering differences in the kind of learning, the cost of mistakes and the workplace's readiness. Bring in any data the organization has. End with what the evidence does and does not support and a recommendation that follows from it. Expect about five pages with APA 7 headings and references.
Inside the GM501 Unit 2 example
The paper quotes the finance team's sentence and the proposal to cut first-year classroom training. A tracing section follows the ratio from McCall, Lombardo and Morrison's interviews with successful executives to Lombardo and Eichinger's planning guide, which gave the proportions as advice, and then into consulting materials. The highlighted sentence describes memories becoming a measured fact. A four-row evidence list, built on Barends and Rousseau's appraisal questions, shows that only Clardy's review tests the ratio, and it finds no empirical basis for the numbers. A transfer section contrasts executive judgment with hydraulic and electrical diagnostics, notes the cost of trial and error on a $100,000 lift and the branches with one senior technician. The company's records show 22 percent fewer repeat repairs after full training. The paper ends by recommending a branch-level test instead of the cut.
GM501 Unit 2 rubric: what earns full points
Most of the credit in this GM501 appraisal comes from tracing the claim to its true origin and rating each source honestly. Instructors check that the writer distinguishes what a study measured from what later summaries say it showed. An evidence table that records design, sample and whether the source tested the claim earns credit for clarity. Locating a review that examined the claim directly shows research skill. The transfer section is weighted heavily, since evidence from executives may not apply to technicians, and a strong paper explains why in concrete terms. Bringing in the organization's own data, with its limits stated, adds a second line of evidence. The recommendation should follow from what the evidence supports. The Lessons of Experience, Lombardo and Eichinger's guide, Clardy's Human Resource Development Review article and Barends and Rousseau's text provide the sources in APA 7.
GM501 Unit 2 help: mistakes that cost points
GM501 Unit 2 papers often accept a source's own description of its research instead of reading what the study actually did. Others stop tracing at the first academic citation, missing that the numbers entered later in a practitioner guide. A frequent mistake is calling the claim false. What the sources show is narrower: nobody ever measured it. Transfer is often skipped, though evidence from one population rarely carries cleanly to another. Some writers ignore the organization's own records, which may be the most relevant evidence available. Recommendations sometimes reject the whole idea behind the claim, here the value of learning on the job, when the evidence supports the idea and not the numbers. Quote the claim, trace it to its source, rate each source, find any direct review, test transfer, add local data and recommend what the evidence can carry.
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Name the framework under appraisal, whether assigned in Unit 2 or relied on at your workplace, and attach the assignment instructions and rubric. The appraisal will trace that framework's sources back to their origin and characterize how strong each one really is. First custom samples are free, typically delivered within 24-48h. 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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GM501 Unit 2 questions, answered
Where do I find the original source of a popular framework?
The most-cited academic mention is the usual entry point, and its references lead backward. Citation trails in Google Scholar help, as do review articles, which often trace a framework's history. Where the trail ends in a trade book or a consultancy publication, that is itself a finding worth reporting, since it characterizes the kind of support available.
Can a framework be useful without strong evidence?
Yes, and a balanced appraisal says so. Some frameworks work as shared vocabulary or as prompts for discussion even when their specific claims are untested. The appraisal can distinguish those uses from decisions that depend on the claim being true, such as reallocating budget, where weak evidence matters much more to your conclusion.
How detailed should the evidence table be?
Detailed enough to show the pattern, usually four to eight sources with three or four columns. Design, sample, setting and whether the source tested the specific claim are common columns. Discuss the table in the text rather than letting it stand alone, since the interpretation is where most of the analytical credit sits.
Where can I find a free GM501 Unit 2 sample paper?
This page carries a full GM501 Unit 2 evidence appraisal of the 70-20-10 learning ratio, tracing it to its sources, rating each one, testing transfer to equipment technicians and recommending a branch-level test, with APA 7 references.
Is the 70-20-10 model based on research?
It grew out of research in which successful executives recalled the experiences that shaped them, but no study measured the proportions. The numbers appeared in a later planning guide as advice, and a 2018 review found no empirical basis for them.