Survey, natural comparison and action research, weighed against one office's repeat calls: GM505's Unit 2 methodology comparison prices relevance in lost generality and lost distance. Searches like "gm 505 unit 2 assignment example", "gm505 unit 2 sample" and "gm505 unit 2 example" land here.
What a finished GM505 Unit 2 methodology comparison looks like
Roughly five pages under APA headings, with a comparison table on the second page. The table has three columns, one per design, and rows for who frames the question, where the researcher stands, what counts as evidence, what the findings can claim beyond this office, and what changes in the office while the study runs. Each design then gets a paragraph describing how it would actually operate: a student satisfaction survey mailed after the fall term, a comparison of repeat-call rates between the north and south campuses, and a series of plan, act and observe cycles run by an advisor who works in the office. A closing section lists the trade as three items and ends by choosing action research for this question, with the limits of that choice written into the same paragraph.
How a GM505 Unit 2 example is structured
The comparison is built on one question rather than on methodology in the abstract, which is what keeps it from reading as a textbook summary. Every design is costed in identical terms, so a reader can move across a row and see the difference instead of being told it. Lewin's 1946 framing of research tied to action anchors the third column, and Susman and Evered's five-phase cycle, from diagnosing through specifying learning, gives it a structure a reader can check. The trade section refuses the lazy verdict that action research is simply less rigorous. It argues instead that rigor is judged by other criteria, borrowing Herr and Anderson's outcome, process, democratic, catalytic and dialogic validity. What is surrendered is still named without hedging: findings that travel beyond this office, a researcher with no stake, and clean attribution of cause.
One question, three designs
The repeat-call puzzle is stated first, with a bracketed count of calls per student from the phone system, so that every design afterward is judged against the same concrete problem rather than against a general research aim.
The survey, run properly
A mailed satisfaction instrument with a sampling frame, a response-rate estimate and a named bias: students who stopped calling, or stopped enrolling, rarely answer surveys about the office that lost them.
North campus against south
The two campuses use different document letters, which creates a natural comparison. The paragraph notes what it could show about the letter and what it could not separate from differences in the student populations.
Cycles run from the inside
An advisor plans a change, tries it, watches the calls and revises. The paragraph credits Susman and Evered for the phases and Coghlan and Brannick for the problems peculiar to researching one's own workplace.
What relevance costs
Three losses stated plainly: generality, distance and attribution. Against them sit three gains: the office uses what is learned, staff help frame the question, and some facts appear only once the system is disturbed.
Where marks go in GM505 Unit 2
Treating action research as a weaker survey, or as consulting with a reading list, is the usual way comparisons in this unit give up marks. Neither description matches the method, and sections commonly reward a paper that shows it has its own logic and its own quality criteria. Credit also depends on concreteness. A table comparing qualitative and quantitative research in general earns less than one comparing three designs run on a single question. The trade has to be stated rather than implied, and papers that list only what action research gains tend to be marked as advocacy. Accuracy on the named sources counts; Lewin's cycle attributed to a textbook author, or Susman and Evered's phases misordered, costs points. The choice at the end is assessed for fit with the question asked.
Get a GM505 Unit 2 example written to your instructions
Pick a question your own workplace keeps circling and share it with the Unit 2 prompt and its rubric. Built on that question, the first methodology comparison you request costs nothing, arrives within 24-48h, and sets out the three designs your section names if they differ from a survey, a comparison and action research.
GM505 Unit 2 questions, answered
Is action research qualitative research?
Not necessarily. It is defined by its cycle of action and reflection and by the researcher's involvement, not by the kind of data collected. Many action research projects count things, such as calls, errors or turnaround days, alongside interviews. A comparison that equates the method with interviews tends to lose accuracy points, because the literature treats the data question as separate.
Which designs should action research be compared against?
Whatever your prompt names comes first. Where the choice is open, a survey and a controlled or natural comparison make useful contrasts because they differ from action research on distance and on attribution. Case study research is another common pairing, since it shares the close focus on one setting while leaving the setting unchanged by the researcher.
Can the comparison argue against action research?
Yes, if the question calls for it. Some questions need findings that apply across many offices or a clean causal estimate, and action research is a poor fit for those. A paper that recommends a survey for a question about national patterns, while explaining why action research suits a local problem, shows more judgment than one that favors the method regardless.