Completed example — Reason-Provenance Record

Project: PISA moving-benchmark analysis
Record ID: RP-Q-01
Stage: Early question formation

1. Consequential research move

Formulate the question:

Has the UK’s relative position improved because its own performance improved, or because other education systems deteriorated more rapidly?

2. Why it matters

The question changes the project from a conventional ranking comparison into an analysis that separates absolute performance change from movement within a changing comparison field.

3. Contribution functions

Function Researcher contribution AI/system contribution Other contributor Evidence
Origination Supplied substantive context, prior ranking interest and research programme Earliest recoverable explicit formulation of the moving-benchmark question — Recovered workflow record
Evaluation Judged the question substantively useful and researchable Helped elaborate analytical implications — Subsequent project development
Integration Incorporated the question into the empirical design Supported development of code/specification options — Versioned project artefacts
Interpretation Retained authority over the final empirical and substantive interpretation Proposed candidate interpretations and challenges — Manuscript and challenge records

4. Evidence timing

The earliest recoverable workflow formulation explicitly contains the moving-benchmark question. Later reconstruction places that formulation within the broader research history.

5. Claim supported

A bounded claim can be made that generative AI supplied the earliest recoverable explicit formulation of the moving-benchmark question that materially shaped the project.

6. Alternative histories not ruled out

The surviving evidence cannot prove that no similar idea had previously occurred privately to the researcher.

7. Evidential limit

Do not claim that AI independently originated the entire PISA project or the researcher’s underlying interest in rankings and multidimensional comparison.

8. Public-release status