RMP.2:4 - Solution
Hold the ResearchQuestionBrief fixed and test whether current evidence already meets its answer condition. For a question that remains open, compare what obtainable strategies can contribute with the whole burden they require. Separate a selected study, a selection that still needs a missing result, and a completed allocation answer choosing no new study. Return one disposition and preserve all external authority.
RMP.2:4.1 - Admit the Design Question
- Load the exact brief and frame. Recover the receiver and use, intended episteme change, bounded question, qualified current frame, serious rivals, criticism demand, constraints, source/currentness limits, answer condition and work-stop conditions. Direct entry is allowed when these values are supplied compatibly; ritual passage through RMP.1 is not required.
- Check stability. If the receiving use, question, current frame, serious rival set, or useful stop has materially changed, return to RMP.1. Do not compare designs for a question that no longer obtains.
- Keep authority outside. Name domain truth owners, instrument and measurement owners, ethics and safety authorities, access and rights holders, providers, resource owners, and the final receiving decision. A proposed design cannot supply their missing results.
- Define the design decision boundary. State which family and criticism logic are being selected, which operational details are deliberately not selected here, and what would count as stop, refusal, or reopening.
RMP.2:4.2 - Test the Evidence-Sufficient Stop
Compare the qualified current evidence with the ResearchQuestionBrief’s answer condition. Use the condition concerning what the evidence must establish, not a condition that permits work to end with uncertainty or refusal:
- Does it answer the bounded question for the named receiver and use?
- Does its applicability cover the phenomenon, unit, case, population, corpus, contrast, and horizon?
- Does it address the principal live rival or validity threat rather than merely agree with the favored answer?
- Are its source, evidence-use, provenance, uncertainty, and currentness limits compatible with the reliance proposed?
If the evidence meets the answer condition, return the answer with the source and limits needed for its use. This is EvidenceSufficientStop; the existing answer may already be the complete result. Finish before constructing unused design comparisons or a separate justification for omitting a study. For a later receiving use, retain any uncertainty, scope limit or reason that can change that receiver’s reliance.
If the evidence is insufficient, ask what a new obtainable study could change and whether that contribution warrants its complete burden under the supplied constraints. Count preparation, access, measurement, execution, interpretation, participants, delay and displaced Work, including joint resource limits. Research worth includes a defensible contribution to knowledge and later inquiry; it is not confined to an immediate operating or commercial decision.
When supplied facts already justify selecting no new study for the current allocation question, return QualifiedNoNewStudy under §4.7 with the bounded answer or unresolved claim. Otherwise continue with the inputs and real options that can change the remaining selection. Budget, priority, availability and burden can bear on that allocation answer; they cannot turn insufficient evidence into sufficient evidence.
RMP.2:4.3 - Expose Selection-Changing Inputs
While a selection remains open, identify the external values that can alter the relevant family, criticism or feasibility:
| Input kind | Selection-changing question | Typical owner return |
|---|---|---|
| construct or mechanism relation | Would a different qualified relation change what must be observed, manipulated, compared, or modeled? | Domain science, engineering, or theory owner |
| observation or source admissibility | Could the observation/source be incapable of bearing on the claim, or require a different source-critical relation? | Domain observation, archive, data, legal, rights, or source owner |
| instrument or measurement feasibility | Could sensitivity, specificity, calibration, disturbance, resolution, or construct validity eliminate the planned discrimination? | Measurement, instrument, laboratory, or domain owner |
| case, population, material, corpus, or site access | Could access or sampling conditions make the selected contrast impossible or materially different? | Site, archive, data, participant, asset, or access owner |
| ethics, safety, rights, confidentiality, or community authority | Could a legitimate restriction prohibit the strategy or require a different evidence relation? | Applicable ethics, safety, rights, privacy, security, or community authority |
| intervention, exposure, or comparison control | Could the intended manipulation or contrast not be made, observed, or attributed as assumed? | Domain, operational, provider, or authority owner |
| resource and provider feasibility | Could capacity, timing, specialist support, compute, laboratory, or field availability eliminate the family or core criticism? | Resource, provider, laboratory, platform, or programme owner |
| receiving authority or admissible use | Could the receiver be unable to use the result, or require a different claim and evidence relation? | Receiving decision or assurance authority |
For each unresolved input that can affect the remaining selection, contrast plausible owner results and the design consequences of each. If two plausible results change the family, core contrast, criticism logic, feasibility or stop/refusal, that particular selection remains held. If every admissible result leaves them unchanged, the item may be tested as a PostSelectionNeed. Where supplied facts already settle the current allocation question in favor of no new study, an unknown can instead remain a limitation or reopen condition of QualifiedNoNewStudy. Naming either kind of dependency does not commission obtaining the missing result.
Joint-input test. When several inputs remain unresolved, test their jointly admissible combinations. Include combinations unless supplied owner results exclude them. A set of PostSelectionNeed items is legitimate only while every admitted combination preserves the selected family, core contrast, criticism logic, feasibility, and refusal conditions. Testing one value at a time while fixing the others favorably does not establish this condition.
For example, two necessary tasks require non-overlapping effort from the same ten available investigator-days. Each remaining demand ranges from four to six days, and supplied results do not exclude six plus six. Checking six plus four and four plus six separately passes, but the jointly admissible six-plus-six combination needs twelve days. Do not return ResearchDesignDecision for that strategy. Return ResearchDesignHold with the unresolved demands, their owners, the feasible and infeasible combinations, and the result needed to reopen selection.
RMP.2:4.4 - Compose Serious Design-or-Stop Options
Compare the actual answer-changing options for the same brief. Preserve a feasible incumbent or routine alternative when it is serious, and compare further research with the relevant no-new-study outcome. A source, owner result or criticism relation may rule an apparent option out before detailed design work. Use that reason; there is no minimum number of options to invent or develop.
If only one serious research relation remains, judge whether it can expose the relevant error, is feasible and contributes enough to warrant its whole burden compared with no new study. Its uniqueness neither disqualifies it nor makes selection automatic. Add another option when it offers a genuinely different relation or trade-off that could change this choice.
For each remaining serious option, make the following relations clear, reusing the brief and adequate supplied results:
- the intended episteme change and useful stop it addresses;
- the cases, units, materials, population, corpus, intervention/exposure, observations or sources, and comparison relation needed at family level;
- the principal criticism it can perform and the result that would defeat or narrow the claim;
- the validity threats it addresses, creates, or leaves live;
- required domain, source, instrument, access, ethics, safety, rights, authority, resource, and provider results, distinguishing supplied from assumed;
- expected answer-changing information and the conditions under which the option adds nothing;
- burden, risk, reversibility, timing, and recoverable refusal or stop; and
- what remains for later operationalization and trace work if selected.
A serious option differs in an answer-changing relation. Changing software, sample-size notation, interview brand, report format, or level of detail without changing the evidence and criticism relation does not create another option.
RMP.2:4.5 - Preserve Design-Family Differences
| Design family | Characteristic question-to-evidence relation | Criticism that must remain visible | Load-bearing values that commonly hold selection |
|---|---|---|---|
| experimental/quantitative | Deliberately vary or assign an intervention/exposure or comparison condition and estimate a bounded difference or relation. | Rival causes, allocation, baseline imbalance, measurement error, model dependence, missingness, intervention fidelity, and applicability. | Manipulability, admissible comparison, mechanism relation, instrument validity, safety, authority, sample/case feasibility, and effect/uncertainty use. |
| field/observational | Observe obtaining exposures, states, changes, or contexts without free assignment and construct a comparison that bears on the claim. | Confounding, selection, measurement validity, site/context dependence, seasonality, missingness, reverse relation, and transfer. | Site access, observation admissibility, measure validity, temporal/spatial frame, comparison availability, and domain causal limits. |
| qualitative/reflexive | Develop a situated account of meaning, experience, practice, process, or mechanism from participants, records, interactions, or cases. | Researcher position, rival interpretation, negative/disconfirming cases, sampling relevance, context, participant voice, and unsupported transfer. | Legitimate participation/access, ethical relation, phenomenon framing, source/record admissibility, interpretive competence, and harm/confidentiality constraints. |
| historical/source-critical | Form a claim about an occurrence, interpretation, change, or lineage from incomplete and situated records. | Provenance, chronology, source purpose, survival and archival silences, alternative interpretations, anachronism, and corroboration limits. | Source authenticity and access, chronology, rights, archive completeness, admissible relation between record and claim, and missing rival records. |
| computational/model | Challenge a mathematical, algorithmic, simulation, or code-mediated claim through derivation, implementation, calibration, sensitivity, reproduction, validation, or intended-use comparison. | Code/data/environment dependence, implementation defects, parameter and structural sensitivity, calibration, validation, identifiability, and intended-use fit. | Model-to-phenomenon relation, data and code access, environment identity, validation target, compute feasibility, and domain acceptance criteria. |
| synthesis | Treat a contested existing evidence corpus as the governed object with a qualified question, eligibility, search, appraisal, integration, and refusal-to-pool logic. | Eligibility bias, search omissions, source dependence, heterogeneity, incompatible measures or meanings, appraisal limits, and publication/reporting bias. | Qualified corpus question, source trace, eligibility rules, appraisal method, comparable result relations, access, and currentness. |
| mixed | Relate two or more unlike component designs because the question needs distinct evidence relations, not because “more methods” is prestigious. | Each component’s own threats plus the integration claim, disagreement, non-comparability, dominance of one component, and forced convergence. | A reason each component is necessary, component feasibility, a warranted relation among their results, and an honest rule for disagreement or partial failure. |
These families are a comparison surface, not a lifecycle or evidence hierarchy. A use may enter with an existing claim, source corpus, model, field anomaly, or proposed intervention. It may stop, repeat, switch family after a changed input, or compose unlike components explicitly.
RMP.2:4.6 - Compare on One Decision-Bearing Canvas
Compare the actual options on the following decision-bearing positions. Reuse the existing brief, evidence and owner results; a compact explanation can carry a small comparison.
| Comparison position | Required content |
|---|---|
| question and use fit | Exact brief positions addressed, intended episteme change, receiver, and useful stop. |
| evidence relation | Family-level cases/units/materials/corpus, intervention/exposure, observations or sources, comparisons, and analysis intention. |
| criticism logic | Principal error or rival exposed, defeating/narrowing result, and live threats left outside. |
| validity and transfer | Internal, measurement, source, construct, interpretive, contextual, external, or intended-use limits that matter to this claim. |
| supplied owner results | Current domain, source, instrument, access, ethics, safety, rights, authority, resource, and provider results; unresolved values stay explicit. |
| expected information gain | Which live uncertainty can change, how the result discriminates options or claims, and when added Work has no useful gain. |
| burden and refusal | Obtaining the needed inputs, preparation, execution and interpretation; time, cost, participants, materials, compute, risk, irreversibility, joint resource limits, displaced Work, and refusal or recovery condition. |
| continuation | Later operationalization/trace needs, stop, and exact premise change that reopens family selection. |
Do not collapse the comparison into an unqualified score. A bounded decision rule may combine coordinates, but protected constraints, unlike losses, and unknowns remain visible. One feasible option still has to warrant its burden compared with no new study; imaginary rivals add no protection.
RMP.2:4.7 - Return Exactly One ResearchDesignDisposition
Branch A — EvidenceSufficientStop. Use only when current qualified evidence meets the answer condition. Return the exact answer with the evidence, applicability and limitations needed for this use; keep a later receiver’s decision-changing reason or uncertainty visible. The answer itself completes the branch. Select no design and create no unused option comparison or no-study form.
Branch B — ResearchDesignDecision plus PostSelectionNeed. Use only when one feasible family and criticism logic are justified by comparison with actual alternative strategies and with the option of no new study, the expected contribution warrants the whole burden, and no missing value can overturn the selection. Record the selected strategy, candidate comparison, justification, core contrast/criticism, threats, supplied external results, resource and refusal conditions, expected information gain, useful stop, rejected alternatives, and later needs. Before returning Branch B, apply the joint-input test in RMP.2:4.3 to the complete set of remaining needs. For each PostSelectionNeed, show:
- the bounded value still needed and its owner;
- the admissible range or alternatives already constrained by supplied results;
- the invariant selected family and core criticism across every admissible value; and
- the action if the value arrives outside that range.
An explicitly empty set is written as PostSelectionNeed: none. A need is not post-selection when its unfavorable value would change the family, core contrast, criticism, feasibility, or refusal; return Branch C instead.
Branch C — ResearchDesignHold. Use when a particular selection is still needed and a named missing result prevents deciding it. Make the missing result and owner, exact question and affected candidates, at least two plausible result values and their different design/stop consequences, currently viable alternatives, what Work must not begin, and the reopen condition recoverable. Do not name a “provisional selected design.” The hold identifies the conditional dependency; deciding to obtain that result is separate and requires its own worth, feasibility and authority. The hold can be a useful complete answer about what prevents selection without asserting that an investigation is under way.
Branch D — QualifiedNoNewStudy. Use when the present allocation question is settled by selecting no new study although the evidence does not meet the answer condition. Return the strongest bounded answer or state the exact claim that remains unresolved, together with the reason no worthwhile obtainable study is selected under the current facts and constraints. An unavailable evidence opportunity or the whole burden of the obtainable options exceeding their expected contribution may settle this answer. Keep limitations and the condition that could reopen the choice visible for the receiving use. A material unknown need not become a pending task when no acquisition has been selected. Do not call the evidence sufficient, imply a selected design, waive a receiving authority’s requirements or present obtaining the missing result as commissioned.
The four branches are mutually exclusive for one present selection boundary. Their names distinguish the results; they do not require a separate document or an empty declaration of an unused branch. New evidence or a changed receiving use can reopen the choice. Only Branch B, or a compatible supplied selected-design result, gives RMP.3 a ResearchDesignDecision; a sufficient answer, QualifiedNoNewStudy or a hold does not.
RMP.2:4.8 - What Changes in Practice
The practitioner asks which obtainable strategy can expose the error that matters, what its contribution warrants, and whether a missing result still prevents the current choice. The team can use an already sufficient answer, select useful research, identify a genuine hold, or finish the present allocation with a bounded answer and no new study.