HCD.18:4.4 - Bind values, evidence, and decisions without collapsing them

For each selected characteristic, define its value domain, scale type, polarity, anchors, and conditions of applicability. A numerical scale needs an interpretation: a count, a measured duration, and an ordinal repair judgement support different operations.

For structural amount, a qualitative account of additional and missing relations can suffice. A count or fraction needs fixed semantic units and a nonempty selected set; another scale needs the interpretation required by C.2.8. Keep the observed recovery, conditional design estimate or mapped formal estimate identifiable. A missing denominator or criterion is a gap, not zero. Define any required-relation use condition separately from amount; more unrelated structure cannot compensate for a missing necessary relation.

The profile’s optional 0–5 rendering is ordinal. Its anchors distinguish absence of usable support, limited support, connected central repair, bounded repair, adequacy, and additional useful resilience. They describe material use and repair, not a structural amount, and do not license averages, equal-step differences, or a universal floor. Choose a floor only when the consuming decision needs one, and explain why that decision can rely on it. State any non-compensable condition at its actual grain.

Make adjacent values distinguishable in the domain. For explanatory sufficiency, distinguish rebuilding the central explanation–task chain from repairing one missing transition. Distinguish adequacy for the selected cases from an evidenced advantage across consequential variations. A value of 5 requires the latter advantage over 4, not more pages or a history of having been repaired.

Attach evidence requirements to each value. Source inspection can establish a false unit relation. It cannot establish how an unobserved learner experienced the passage. Where adequacy for the audience requires reader work, say what contribution must be observed and under which assistance conditions. Keep a missing observation explicit; lack of evidence is not the material value 0.

Define what a result returns for each selected coordinate: value or lawful missingness, evidence basis, limiting case, grounds against adjacent alternatives, implication for use, and smallest worthwhile repair. Shared evidence may be cited by several rows without being counted as independent observations.

Resolve differences at their cause. If two evaluators disagree between 2 and 3, trace whether the repair crosses a central connected chain or remains bounded. Do not average the judgements. If the disputed distinction repeatedly fails to change action, repair the scale rather than demand stronger agreement with an arbitrary label.