| Course | MT203 Human Resource Management |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 6 |
| Paper type | Training needs assessment |
| Length | About 1,120 words, 7 pages double-spaced |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Purdue University Global |
| Program | BS in Business Administration |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for MT203 Unit 6
Green Pools and Burned Pumps: A Unit 6 Training Needs Assessment at a Pool Service Company
[Student Name]
Purdue University Global
MT203: Human Resource Management
Unit 6 Training Needs Assessment
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
Bluebonnet Pool Care, its technicians and every figure are composite and illustrative; bracketed figures stand where the company's records would supply the numbers; the sources cited are real.
The Request
Between May and September, Bluebonnet Pool Care logged [104] callbacks, visits made because a customer reported a problem after a scheduled service. The year before, it logged [61]. Each callback costs a technician about an hour and the company about [$55] in time and fuel, before counting the occasional refund. The owner proposed a four-hour water chemistry refresher for all [48] technicians in October. Before approving it, he asked for an assessment of what the callbacks actually showed.
Method
Goldstein and Ford (2002) describe needs assessment as three levels of analysis: the organization, which asks where training fits the company's goals and resources; the task, which asks what the job requires; and the person, which asks who needs what. I used all three. The callback log supplied the evidence by cause and technician. The Unit 2 job analysis supplied the task requirements. I rode along with [six] technicians, three with less than a year of experience and three with more than three years, and interviewed both route supervisors and the dispatcher.
What the Callbacks Show
Sorting by cause produced three large groups. Green or cloudy water within a week of service accounted for about [46] percent of callbacks. Equipment problems, mostly pumps that ran dry and overheated after a basket was left clogged or a valve was left closed, accounted for about [30] percent. Gates left unlatched or notes not left accounted for most of the rest.
Sorting by technician changed the picture. Technicians in their first season, who made up about a third of the workforce, accounted for about [two thirds] of the green water and equipment callbacks. Their callback rate per hundred visits was roughly [three] times that of technicians with more than one season. Experienced technicians had very few chemistry callbacks.
What the Observations Show
The ride-alongs explained the gap. Experienced technicians tested stabilizer levels monthly and adjusted chlorine doses when stabilizer was high, because they knew that heavily stabilized water needs more chlorine to stay clear in Texas heat. Two of the three newer technicians did not test stabilizer at all; they had been shown the test kit once in March and never again. The newer technicians also closed the skimmer valve when cleaning baskets and sometimes forgot to reopen it, which starves the pump. Experienced technicians had a habit of touching each valve as they left the equipment pad, a check nobody had taught them formally.
Causes That Are Not Training
Two findings are not training matters, and the assessment would be incomplete without them. First, the Arlington branch had been issuing test reagents past their expiration date since June, because restocking was nobody's job. Expired reagents give false readings, and Arlington's experienced technicians also had more chemistry callbacks than their peers at other branches. Second, dispatch had added pools to routes in July without removing any, so some routes ran [75] pools a week. Technicians on overloaded routes, whatever their experience, skipped steps.
The interviews added a third, smaller finding. Route supervisors said they had no time in summer to ride with new technicians after their first week, so the March instruction was never repeated or checked. One supervisor said he learned about a new technician's habits only when callbacks arrived. That is a feedback gap, and it explains why errors that should have been caught in April were still happening in August.
Mager and Pipe (1997) suggested a blunt first question for any performance gap: could the person do it correctly if their life depended on it? When the answer is yes, more instruction will not help, and the manager should look for obstacles, missing feedback or competing demands instead. The experienced Arlington technicians could test water correctly; their reagents were bad. The overloaded technicians knew the steps; they did not have time for them.
Retraining all forty-eight technicians on chemistry would have taught the experienced ones what they already knew and left the expired reagents in the trucks.
Need Statement
The training need is specific: first-season technicians need instruction and practice in stabilizer testing and dose adjustment, and in a valve check before leaving every equipment pad. The need is for about [16] technicians, not 48. Two other needs are not training: a reagent restocking owner at each branch, and a route cap of about [65] pools a week.
Recommended Training Design
The training should be short and practical. A ninety-minute session at each branch in March would cover stabilizer testing, with each new technician running tests on four water samples of known values and adjusting a dose on paper. A second part would teach the valve check as a routine, practiced on an equipment board at the shop. Each new technician would then ride with an experienced technician for three days, using a checklist that the experienced technician signs.
Arthur et al. (2003) pooled more than a thousand effect sizes and reported that training generally worked, and that how well it worked depended partly on whether the way it was delivered fit the skill being taught, so interpersonal, cognitive and hands-on skills each call for different designs. A skill such as testing and dosing calls for hands-on practice, not a lecture. The ninety-minute length is deliberate as well: new technicians in March are already absorbing safety rules, route maps and customer expectations, and a short session with immediate practice is more likely to be remembered than a half-day classroom.
Evaluation
Success would mean first-season technicians' callback rate falling to within [50] percent of the experienced rate by July, and overall callbacks falling below [70] for the season. Because the reagent and route changes happen at the same time, the company should track callbacks by cause, so it can see which change produced which result. If green water callbacks drop at Arlington across all technicians, the reagents were the cause there; if they drop mainly among new technicians at every branch, the training worked.
Cost Comparison
The owner's original refresher would have cost about [$9,600] in wages for 48 technicians at four hours each, plus the trainer's time. The targeted design costs about [$3,100]: ninety minutes for 16 technicians, three days of paired riding, and the reagent and route changes, which cost almost nothing beyond a supervisor's attention. The cheaper option is also the one more likely to work.
References
Arthur, W., Jr., Bennett, W., Jr., Edens, P. S., & Bell, S. T. (2003). Effectiveness of training in organizations: A meta-analysis of design and evaluation features. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88(2), 234-245. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.88.2.234
Goldstein, I. L., & Ford, J. K. (2002). Training in organizations: Needs assessment, development, and evaluation (4th ed.). Wadsworth.
Mager, R. F., & Pipe, P. (1997). Analyzing performance problems: Or, you really oughta wanna (3rd ed.). Center for Effective Performance.
What the MT203 Unit 6 assignment asks for
Unit 6 commonly asks for a training needs assessment built from evidence about a performance problem. Most prompts expect you to describe the problem and the training someone has proposed, gather data from more than one source, analyze at the organization, task and person levels, and write a need statement. A good assessment also names causes that training cannot fix, such as missing tools, unclear expectations or workload, because leaving them out implies that a class will solve them. Many sections then ask for a short training design and an evaluation plan. Use the job analysis from Unit 2 if your section links the units. Composite data is usually accepted when labeled. Expect four to five pages, often with tables in your own version, with Goldstein and Ford or a similar needs assessment source in the reference list.
Inside the MT203 Unit 6 example
The assessment starts with the owner's request and the callback figures. A method section applies Goldstein and Ford's three levels using the callback log, the Unit 2 analysis, six ride-alongs and interviews. Sorting callbacks by cause shows three groups, and sorting them by technician shows the first-season gap, the finding the margin note singles out. Observations explain the gap through stabilizer testing and the valve habit experienced technicians learned on their own. A section on non-training causes covers expired reagents at Arlington, routes of seventy-five pools and supervisors with no time to ride along, and Mager and Pipe's question frames them. The highlighted line names what a blanket refresher would have missed. The need statement narrows training to about sixteen technicians, the design uses ninety minutes of practice and paired riding, and Arthur and colleagues support the hands-on method.
Where the points sit in the MT203 Unit 6 rubric
Needs assessments in this course are usually scored on whether the evidence leads to the need. Sorting the data more than one way, and showing what each sort reveals, demonstrates analysis rather than reporting. Using the organization, task and person levels shows command of the model. Graders tend to reward writers who identify causes that training will not fix, since that is the judgment the assessment exists to provide. The need statement should be narrow and specific, naming who needs what. A training design earns credit when its method fits the skill, and an evaluation plan earns more when it can separate the effect of training from other changes made at the same time. A cost comparison with the original proposal makes the recommendation concrete. Goldstein and Ford, Mager and Pipe, and Arthur and colleagues should be cited in APA 7.
Common MT203 Unit 6 mistakes, and how to avoid them
Training needs assessments often fail by accepting the proposed training and gathering evidence to support it. Another frequent problem is analyzing only the person level, so organizational causes such as supplies or workload never appear. Some papers present data in one sort only, which can hide the group that actually needs help. Others write a need statement as broad as the original request, such as all employees need refresher training. Evaluation plans are often missing or measure only whether trainees liked the session. Be careful when other fixes happen at the same time as training; without a plan to separate them, nobody will know what worked. If your workplace has a performance problem you can describe, it usually makes a strong case. Send us the problem and the data you have, and our writers can help sort it and write a need statement the evidence supports.
Get an MT203 Unit 6 example written to your instructions
Send the performance problem named in the Unit 6 prompt, or one observed at a past job, along with the rubric and any figures the case provides. The assessment comes back in 24-48h, sources named, causes sorted and a precise need stated; bracketed numbers mark anything filled in. There is no fee for a first sample. 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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MT203 Unit 6 questions, answered
Is this the same as a training needs analysis?
The terms are often used interchangeably, and sections vary. The example follows the usual logic of either: a performance problem, evidence gathered from several sources, causes separated into those training can address and those it cannot, and a need stated precisely enough to design from. If a section prescribes organizational, task and person levels, those headings fit over the same evidence.
Where can I find a free MT203 Unit 6 sample paper?
This page shows a complete MT203 Unit 6 training needs assessment for a pool service company. It sorts callbacks by cause and technician, separates training from non-training causes, narrows the need to first-season technicians and includes margin notes.
Why does the sample include causes that are not training problems?
Because a class could not fix them. Expired test reagents at one branch and routes of seventy-five pools would keep producing callbacks however well technicians were trained, so the assessment assigns those causes to supplies and dispatch instead.
Where does the callback data in the sample come from?
It is composite and bracketed. A real pool service company would take it from its callback log, which records each return visit with the customer's complaint, the date and the technician who serviced the pool.
How does the sample plan to tell whether the training worked?
By tracking callbacks by cause and branch. If green-water callbacks fall at Arlington across all technicians, the reagents were the cause there; if they fall mainly among new technicians everywhere, the training made the difference.