← Researcher guide

IST10 — researcher guide

Sentence stems © Susanne Cook-Greuter.

Version IST10-2026-10-23. This form uses the balanced short-form selection described in the length-choice guide. Noncommercial research uses the research agreement. Publications, preprints and reports using Freedom from Fusion scores must cite Madl & Cook-Greuter (2026) and Madl & Lazar (2026). Those using Concern Preservation alone must cite Madl & Lazar (2026). We supply the references with your results.

Administer

Administration order was revised on 23 October 2026; the stems and original item IDs are unchanged. The reported validation used archival administration order.

The stems retain the wording used in the evaluation, including historical references to gender and family roles.

Give participants IST10_participant.docx, or create a Google Form using create_google_form.gs. Preserve all 10 prompts, their wording and their order. Original items in administration order: 6, 10, 20, 24, 26, 27, 28, 34, 35, 9. The neutral instructions ask participants to complete the sentences in their own words, permit skipped answers and avoid identifying details. Use participant codes, with study information and consent supplied through your usual study process.

The XLSX workbook is for researchers: its Items tab maps prompt positions to original item IDs, and Responses is a blank wide-format entry sheet. Use the same form/version at every comparison occasion. Keep treatment and time-point labels outside the scoring input.

In archived administrations these responses contained a median 62 written words, excluding prompts. This is observed writing burden, not a measured completion time; all short-form analyses reconstructed subsets of longer administrations.

Google Form and scoring export

  1. Open Google Apps Script, create a project and paste create_google_form.gs.
  2. Run createIST10Form. The log and linked Sheet show the created resources. Re-running returns the same resources.
  3. Add study information and review access in the collecting lab’s account. The form starts unpublished; questions are optional, in fixed order, and do not collect email addresses.
  4. Publish through Google when ready. After collection, run exportIST10Responses and download Scoring export as CSV.

The collecting lab controls its Google Form and response sheet. The builder sends nothing to the scoring service. Submit de-identified responses separately when ready.

Score

Free IST scoring is available to COFO-funded, institutionally affiliated noncommercial research teams, up to 100 participants per team per request. Larger requests and other teams require a custom agreement. First contact tamas.madl@ofai.at, preferably from your institutional email address, with your study description, COFO funding reference, participant count, and number of assessments or accounts per participant. We confirm the scope and provide encrypted file-transfer instructions before you send responses. Use email to arrange scoring; do not attach participant files. You can request FFF, concern preservation, or both. See the submission guide and data-handling commitments.

Score each stem with its completion, average available responses within each of the five FFF criteria, then average the five criterion means equally. Blank responses and failed scoring calls remain missing. Each usable completion receives all five FFF ratings, even when it provides little evidence about a criterion. CP records insufficient evidence separately from exclusion.

Concern preservation

This form retains 5 of the 12 designated protocol anchors, representing 5 of six domains. This counts supplied prompts, not demonstrated preservation. Other answers can contain relevant evidence. A concern prompted only by an omitted stem is recorded as unassessable. The results mark absent anchor targets as unassessable and report them, so shorter forms do not acquire low preservation scores merely by omitting prompts.

Interpretation and versions

See the length-choice guide for current fixed-form results. Ten stems suit brief group comparisons; eighteen provide closer agreement with full-protocol change and prompts spanning all six concern domains. Five are a very brief exploratory option. Forms were selected within the study cohorts and evaluated as subsets of longer administrations. Keep the same form and scoring version across occasions.