Give students five minutes to write what they think the answer is, using only what they already know or believe. Tell them clearly: they are not expected to be right. They are expected to try. The time limit is deliberate — short enough that researching first is not possible, long enough that something genuinely theirs must appear on the page.
Ask students to date it and keep it in their books, or collect it yourself. Do not assess it at this stage. Do not share it with the class. Its value is that it exists before the research phase opens and belongs entirely to the student.
Students investigate the question using class resources, approved materials, or any permitted tools — including AI — in the usual way. Nothing changes here. The protocol's effect has already been secured by the initial response.
Before students submit or share their final response, add one step. Ask them to write two to four sentences answering three questions: what changed from your first response, what stayed the same, and what made the difference?
Collect the Position Comparison as a visible, assessed component of the task. A student who writes that their answer became more complicated because the evidence showed three connected causes rather than one is demonstrating the evaluative shift the inquiry was designed to produce.
Before a science inquiry session, ask students to draw or dictate one thing they think will happen and one reason why. After the investigation, return to their prediction and ask: "Was your drawing right? What was different?" Accept oral response. The comparison does not need to be written — it needs to happen before the prediction is forgotten.
Before a social sciences or inquiry task, give students five minutes to write their initial position using the sentence starter: "I think the answer is... because..." After research, the Position Comparison is two to four sentences: what changed, what stayed the same, what made the difference. Assess the comparison explicitly — name it on the rubric so students know it carries marks.
At the start of an NCEA internal assessment task, students write a paragraph-length initial position without notes or resources. At submission, they attach a Position Comparison that names the specific evidence or reasoning that shifted their thinking — and identifies one claim they held initially that the evidence did not support. The comparison is assessed as part of the evidence of thinking artefact.
The initial position predates any resource or tool use, so it cannot be constructed retrospectively. A student who can name specific changes and account for what drove them has engaged in the evaluative reasoning the inquiry was designed to develop. A student who cannot reveals that research and thinking did not connect.
For students who find open-ended timed writing difficult, offer a sentence starter — "I think the answer is... because..." — to anchor the commitment without removing it. The goal is that something genuine appears on the page before the research phase opens, not that every student produces the same format.