GM505 Unit 5 Financial Aid Intervention Design Example

Course	GM505 Action Research and Consulting Skills
Unit	Unit 5
Paper type	Intervention design
Length	About 1,040 words, 6 pages double-spaced
Format	APA 7 student paper
School	Purdue University Global
Program	MS in Management
Updated	October 2026

Free sample paper for GM505 Unit 5

A Letter, a Note and Ten Minutes: A Unit 5 Intervention Design for a Financial Aid Office

[Student Name]

Purdue University Global

GM505: Action Research and Consulting Skills

Unit 5 Intervention Design

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The college, its staff, its students and every figure are composite and illustrative; the frameworks and studies cited are real.

What this part is doingStating the design's three parts and its single test in the lead tells the reader how each element will be judged.

The Diagnosis in Brief

The diagnostic report found that most phone traffic during verification season comes from the document process rather than from advisor courtesy or raw volume. An unclear request letter produces incomplete uploads, which lengthen the review queue and generate status calls. Because the processor's findings never reach the advisors' screens, a student asking about a held file usually hangs up no wiser and calls back. This design addresses both links.

Change 1: A Rewritten Request Letter

What changes. The current letter lists required items by federal form name. The new letter, drafted in two sessions with six students who had recently completed verification and two advisors, gives each missing item its own checklist line, describes it in plain words and says where to get it. For example, instead of "IRS Tax Return Transcript," the line reads: "A transcript of your 2024 tax return from the IRS. This is not a copy of your return. You can download it free at the IRS website under Get Transcript, or call the IRS and request it by mail." Each line also gives a picture of the first page of the correct document.

Who owns it. The director approves the final text; the senior processor maintains it each year when federal forms change.

What it costs in time. About eight hours to draft and test, and about two hours a year to update.

What would show it working. A higher share of files complete on first submission and fewer calls asking how to complete a document.

Research on student aid suggests why plain instructions matter: students who received direct help completing aid forms were substantially more likely to complete them and enroll than students who received only information about aid (Bettinger et al., 2012). The rewritten letter aims to carry some of that help on paper.

Change 2: Status Notes in the File

What changes. Each time the senior processor reviews a file, she adds a one-line note visible to advisors, such as "Transcript received, household form missing signature, emailed student October 3." Advisors answering a status call can then tell the student exactly what is needed.

Who owns it. The senior processor, who designed the format herself after the diagnosis meeting.

What it costs in time. About thirty seconds per review, or roughly forty minutes a day in peak weeks.

What would show it working. Fewer repeat status calls and fewer callbacks from advisors to the processor.

Change 3: A Daily Ten-Minute Huddle

What changes. At 8:50 each morning, the processor and the advisors covering the phones that day meet for ten minutes. The processor names any common problem in yesterday's files, such as a wave of unsigned forms, so advisors can warn callers.

Who owns it. The director starts the huddle; after two weeks, advisors rotate leading it.

What it costs in time. Ten minutes a day for four to six people.

What would show it working. Advisors report knowing about common problems before callers raise them.

Each change is small enough to survive the October rush: a letter that is written once, a note that takes thirty seconds and a huddle that costs ten minutes.

What this part is doingThe highlighted sentence applies the design's sustainability test to all three changes at once, which is the design's organizing principle.

The October Test

Every element was tested against a single question: could the office still be doing this in the busiest week of October, when advisors take more than a hundred calls a day and the processor reviews files until six? A design that required extra staff, long meetings or a new system would fail that test. The earlier staging-check style of fix, adding a person to inspect, was rejected for that reason. Each change here fits into work the office already does.

Force Field

Kurt Lewin's force field analysis weighs the forces driving a change against those restraining it, and suggests that reducing restraining forces often works better than adding pressure (Lewin, 1951).

Driving forces. The dean wants fewer complaints. Advisors are frustrated by status calls they cannot answer. The processor wants fewer incomplete files. Students who helped draft the letter can speak to its clarity.

Restraining forces. The processor's time is already stretched in peak weeks. Advisors may see the huddle as another meeting. The director worries that changing the letter could conflict with federal requirements. And the dean's live-answer rule keeps all advisors on phones, leaving little time for anything else.

The design reduces restraining forces rather than adding pressure. The note format was the processor's own design, which addresses her time concern. The huddle is short and starts after the phones open. The federal aid office's guidance was checked to confirm that plain-language descriptions are permitted alongside form names. The live-answer rule is left in place for now, since changing it is the dean's decision, but it will be examined in the feedback report.

What this part is doingShowing how the design lowers restraining forces, rather than only listing them, applies Lewin's insight directly.

Pilot Plan

The pilot runs for four weeks on the north campus beginning the first week of October, with the south campus continuing as usual for comparison. Three measures will be tracked weekly on both campuses: repeat document calls per hundred students with open verification files, the share of files complete on first submission and the number of days before the processor first opens a file.

Stop rule. The north campus returns to the old process at once if the processor's review time per file rises by more than 20 percent for two consecutive weeks, since that would suggest the notes cost more than they save, or if advisors report that the huddle is pulling them off the phones during peak minutes.

Owners and Next Steps

The director owns the pilot overall, the processor owns the notes and the letter's maintenance and I own measurement and the data gathering plan in Unit 8. Insider action research depends on the people doing the work owning the change, not the researcher (Coghlan & Brannick, 2014), which is why each change has an owner other than me.

References

Bettinger, E. P., Long, B. T., Oreopoulos, P., & Sanbonmatsu, L. (2012). The role of application assistance and information in college decisions: Results from the H&R Block FAFSA experiment. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 127(3), 1205-1242. https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjs017

Coghlan, D., & Brannick, T. (2014). Doing action research in your own organization (4th ed.). Sage.

Lewin, K. (1951). Field theory in social science: Selected theoretical papers (D. Cartwright, Ed.). Harper & Row.

What the GM505 Unit 5 assignment asks for

GM505's fifth unit asks you to design an intervention that follows from your diagnosis. Summarize the diagnosis in a paragraph so the design can be read alone. Then describe each change in the same order: what changes, who owns it, what it costs in time and what would show it working. Involve the people affected in designing the changes where possible, and say how. Test every element against a sustainability question suited to the setting, such as whether the office could keep it going in its busiest week. Use force field analysis or a similar method to weigh driving and restraining forces, and show how the design reduces restraints rather than adding pressure. Set out a pilot: where, for how long, compared with what, measured how and stopped when. Assign owners other than yourself. Expect about five pages in APA 7, citing Lewin and research related to the change.

Inside the GM505 Unit 5 example

The design opens with a one-paragraph diagnosis. Change 1 rewrites the letter so that each item has its own line, a plain description and a source, with the tax transcript example spelled out, and Bettinger and colleagues' study of aid-form help explains why plain instructions matter. Change 2 adds thirty-second status notes in a format the processor designed. Change 3 sets a 8:50 a.m. huddle that advisors take over after two weeks. The highlighted sentence applies the October test to all three. Lewin's force field weighs the dean's wish for fewer complaints against the processor's time and the live-answer rule, and shows how each restraint was lowered. The pilot runs four weeks on the north campus with three measures and a stop rule tied to review time and huddle disruption, and Coghlan and Brannick support giving every change an owner other than the consultant.

GM505 Unit 5 rubric: what earns full points

Instructors grading this GM505 design look for changes that follow directly from the diagnosis and are specified concretely. Every change needs a named owner, an honest time cost and an observable sign that it works. Involving affected people in the design earns credit, especially when their involvement shaped the result. The sustainability test is weighted heavily because interventions that require extra people or long meetings rarely last. Force field analysis should identify specific forces and show how the design reduces restraints. A pilot with a comparison group, defined measures and a stop rule shows the design can be evaluated honestly. Owners other than the consultant demonstrate understanding of insider action research. Lewin's force field work, the H&R Block FAFSA experiment and Coghlan and Brannick's insider text are cited in APA 7.

GM505 Unit 5 help from the desk

GM505 Unit 5 designs often list ambitious changes that the office could not sustain once the busy season arrives. Others describe changes vaguely, with no owner or measure, so nobody can later confirm they took place. A common gap is designing for the people affected rather than with them. Force field analyses are frequently lists of pros and cons with no link to the design. Pilots often lack a comparison site or a rule for stopping. Summarize the diagnosis, choose two or three linked changes that address its causes, describe each with an owner, a time cost and a success sign, test each against your busiest period, map the forces for and against and show how you lowered the restraints, plan a pilot with a comparison and a stop rule and give ownership to the people who will keep doing the work.

Get a GM505 Unit 5 example written to your instructions

Bring the diagnosis from your Unit 4 work, or the course case's version of it, together with the Unit 5 assignment instructions and rubric. From those, the first intervention design comes back free in 24-48h, sized to the constraints your organization actually has, with a pilot built in if the assignment wants one. 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.

More GM505 papers and MS in Management samples

GM505 Unit 5 questions, answered

Does the intervention need to be implemented for real?

Usually not in this unit. Most sections assess the design, and some later units ask for results where a real engagement exists. If your organization will let you pilot it, say so in the design and describe the pilot honestly, including who approved it. If not, a fully specified plan with owners, measures and a stop rule is what is graded, and it can score just as well.

How many changes should one intervention include?

Few enough that the system can absorb them and that their effects can be told apart. Two or three linked changes, each with an owner, is a common size. A long list of improvements tends to read as a wish list and makes later evaluation almost impossible, because nobody can say which change produced which result when the measures finally move.

Is force field analysis required?

Only if your instructions name it, but it suits this unit because it makes resistance specific. Any method that identifies particular people, rules and incentives working for and against the change serves the same purpose. The weaker version lists resistance to change as a force in itself, which explains nothing, gives the design nothing to answer, and usually costs points.

Where can I find a free GM505 Unit 5 sample paper?

This page carries a full GM505 Unit 5 intervention design for a college financial aid office, with a rewritten letter, status notes, a daily huddle, an October sustainability test, a force field analysis, a pilot plan and APA 7 references.

What is the October test in GM505 Unit 5?

A question applied to every element: could the office still be doing this in its busiest week, when advisors take over a hundred calls a day? Changes that needed extra staff, long meetings or new systems would fail it.