# Instructor guide: Blinded propulsion round-robin adjudication

Course: Precision propulsion metrology

Suggested time: 80–110 minutes

## Learning target

Researchers validate calibration, artifact rejection, blinding, and cross-laboratory agreement before attributing precision force residuals.

## Prepare

- Freeze calibration and qualification thresholds.
- Prepare hidden injections, shams, and one outlier.
- Define the heterogeneity action rule.

## Facilitation moves

- Unblind validation states before unknown effects.
- Require mechanism-specific reversals.
- Do not average an unqualified outlier into apparent consensus.

## Misconception checks

- **Several positive point estimates constitute replication.** Laboratories must recover traceable injections, reject shams, control artifacts, and agree under a prespecified model.
- **An outlier with the smallest p-value deserves the most weight.** Unexplained heterogeneity can reveal calibration or artifact failure and may invalidate pooling.

## Accessibility and participation

- Provide a lab-by-lab adjudication table.
- Use labels and symbols in addition to residual colors.
- Translate χ²/dof into a plain-language agreement statement.

## Evidence of learning

- Prespecified qualification thresholds
- A blinded lab-level adjudication
- A justified pool/hold decision

## Extension

Design a second-round protocol that swaps hardware and analysis teams to localize laboratory versus apparatus effects.

## Evidence boundary

Assess the learner's reasoning only within the declared model and recorded observations. Do not upgrade a simulation result into a claim about an unmodeled physical system.