RMP.5:4 - Solution
State the claim, recover the material and Method it relies on, perform or reuse the relevant analysis, and examine the failure modes that can change the answer. Return the bounded result with the criticism actually performed and its remaining limits.
RMP.5:4.1 - Recover the claim and one consequential connection
State what the answer would assert: about which phenomenon, cases, population, setting, period or corpus; which relation; and under which conditions. Distinguish a description, interpretation, comparison, causal explanation and prediction when their support differs. If the claim is emerging through analysis, say so.
Follow one connection that matters:
| Connection | What to recover |
|---|---|
| Material to observation or source claim | Which records, specimens, encounters, documents or computations are available, what they represent, and their selection, transformation, loss and access limits. |
| Observation or source to analysis | The applicable Method, units, assumptions, consequential choices and actual deviations; which choices preceded seeing the results. |
| Analysis to proposed answer | The reasoning that makes the result bear on the exact claim, including the comparison or interpretation and the scope it can support. |
Recover only the RMP.3 intentions and RMP.4 trace needed for this examination. A recorded plan supplies intentions; actual conduct requires its own evidence. A retrospective account remains retrospective. An inaccessible source, lost observation or unperformed comparison remains a limit.
If the supplied analysis already answers the same question under matching material, Method, assumptions and use, retain it. Recompute or extend only what a changed premise or a live criticism requires. A new filename or the age of an unchanged analysis is not, by itself, such a premise change.
RMP.5:4.2 - Use the analysis that fits the question
Apply the justified disciplinary Method. Its assumptions and criterion must come from the relevant practice, rather than from the prestige of a technique. The following contrasts help select the examination; they are not a list of procedures that every inquiry must perform.
| Research use | Practical analytical move | Criticism that can change the answer |
|---|---|---|
| Quantitative or experimental estimate | Recover the target quantity, sampling or assignment unit and comparison. Estimate the relevant magnitude with a justified uncertainty account. Preserve planned choices and consequential alternatives, exclusions and multiple comparisons. | Dependence, missingness, measurement, design assumptions or analytical choices can change magnitude, uncertainty or interpretation. A significance label alone states neither effect size nor causal warrant. |
| Observational or field account | Relate observations to their sites, periods, selection and measurement conditions. Separate the observed pattern from the proposed explanation. | Confounding, seasonality, selection or an absent comparison can prevent causal attribution even when the observed pattern is clear. Repeated readings of one site do not create independent sites. |
| Qualitative or reflexive interpretation | Use the selected approach and theoretical commitments to develop and ground the interpretation. Connect it to the material, the researcher’s contribution and relevant discordant or negative cases. | A theme can outrun its extracts, suppress a different account or imply unsupported transfer. Reflexive thematic analysis does not acquire methodological coherence from a coder-agreement score imported from another approach. |
| Historical or source-critical account | Examine dating, authenticity, provenance, source purpose, relationships among accounts and the sequence of the events claimed. | Copies can share one source; survival and access can explain a silence; a record may establish a date without establishing causation. Inspect contrary chronology and the limits of the archive actually examined. |
| Computational or model claim | Recover the represented target, derivation or implementation, data and environment, fitted quantities and relevant parameter or structural assumptions. Interpret the output for the stated target. | Correct execution can coexist with an inadequate model-to-world relation. Calibration, implementation verification, sensitivity and use-specific validation answer different questions. |
| Mixed inquiry | Analyze each component under its own Method and state the relation claimed between the results. | Dependence, different meanings, disagreement or non-comparable targets can limit the combined inference. Do not average away a disagreement that changes what the components jointly support. |
A descriptive estimate need not manufacture a causal design. A qualitative approach need not borrow statistical representativeness, universal saturation or reliability procedures that it does not justify. Historical criticism does not require recreating a unique past event. A missing domain Method or criterion limits the dependent analysis and returns to its competent supplier.
RMP.5:4.3 - Criticize the consequential inference
Begin with the threat that can change the present answer, then include the other threats on which the declared claim depends. For each consequential examination, establish:
- which claim or inference could fail;
- what material, alternative analysis or source comparison can expose that failure;
- what was actually examined and what was found;
- how that finding changes the answer, its scope or its uncertainty.
Use real rival explanations and defensible alternative choices. Retain contrary material, meaningful exclusions and the consequences of missing evidence. An unexamined threat is a remaining question, not an established defect. Failure to access the material is not a negative result about the claim.
When an analysis chosen after seeing results reveals an interesting relation, preserve it as such. Explain its relation to the original question and what support it has now. Reclassifying it as a planned test would remove information a critic needs; forbidding all discovery would remove legitimate inquiry.
A sensitivity exercise must identify the relevant choices examined and their effects. Selecting only favorable variants does not establish robustness over the unexamined choices. If a variant changes the target quantity or question, compare the resulting different claims explicitly rather than calling them interchangeable estimates.
RMP.5:4.4 - State the answer the examination supports
Return the strongest answer warranted for the stated use. The result may:
- support the bounded claim to the extent established by the material and Method;
- narrow or qualify the claim because a condition, rival or limitation matters;
- defeat the proposed claim or one of its necessary premises;
- leave the named claim unresolved while preserving what is known.
Make the difference between the requested claim and the returned answer visible. A descriptive result may survive the loss of a causal interpretation. A calculation may survive the rejection of its field-use inference. An unavailable comparison may leave the explanation unresolved without erasing the observations.
Keep support, uncertainty and intended use connected. Where a justified estimate and uncertainty interval are supplied, interpret them under that Method; failure to exclude a null value alone does not establish equivalence, absence of an effect or an effect’s practical importance. Those are further claims with their own criteria.
The answer and the criticism account are the present result. A remaining limitation does not automatically select another study, and a resource limit does not strengthen the evidence.
RMP.5:4.5 - Retain the account needed for criticism and use
Keep the material, consequential choices, examinations, results and limitations recoverable through the existing analysis and trace. Link an adequate notebook, source account or computation rather than duplicate it. For an immediate answer, a short statement with the relevant basis and limitation may be sufficient.
A later reader may need the exact source, analytical choice or reason that changes reliance. Carry that information with the answer or make its source available under the applicable access conditions. If it cannot be recovered, state the resulting limit. Reconstruction can explain a surviving trace; it cannot establish an unrecorded prospective choice or make absent evidence exist.
Preserve confidentiality, rights and participant protection. A permitted critic’s access and a public reader’s access may differ. A redacted summary can communicate a bounded answer without supporting an examination whose decisive material it omits.
RMP.5:4.6 - Finish or return the specific missing premise
| Finding about the present use | Useful continuation |
|---|---|
| The analysis and its criticism already answer the bounded question | Return that answer and its material qualification. |
| The research question or proposed receiving use has changed | Recover the changed question with RMP.1 or compatible supplied inputs. |
| The available contrast or a load-bearing premise defeats the selected design | Return the specific design question to RMP.2. A no-new-study disposition is not a selected design. |
| The operational choice cannot implement the intended contrast | Return that choice to RMP.3, carrying the design consequence rather than silently changing the question. |
| The named examination lacks a recoverable material or transformation relation | Use RMP.4 to recover what survives and state the remaining loss or access limit. |
| A supplied disciplinary Method, criterion or authority result is missing | Return the exact dependent question to its owner. |
| Deciding how to address a remaining credibility threat could change the useful next move | Use RMP.6 with the bounded claim, basis, use and threat. The threat itself commissions no test. |
The receiving engineering, policy, management, assurance or other practice retains its own action criteria and authority. Research criticism can change its evidential basis; it does not make that decision.
RMP.5:4.7 - What changes in practice
The practitioner can show the connection that warrants the answer, the examination that changed it and the limit that remains. A useful result no longer depends on presenting every observation as confirmation or every limitation as a new project.