Concept — Pulse Check (“diagnostic, not test”)

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A pre-engagement self-assessment that gauges cohort readiness without ever being a test. The framing is load-bearing: it is diagnostic, the participant sees no score, and the IS sees only patterns.

Structure ([C1] / [C2])

1 Likert item, 5-point — participant comfort / confidence self-assessment.
Exactly 3 multiple-choice questions — tied to the workshop’s focus points, authored by the Content Creator per C2.
UI explicitly carries “this is a pulse check / diagnostic — not a test” language.

Hard guardrails ([C3], PM-enforced)

No scores shown to anyone.
No pass/fail states.
Patterns-only views for the IS — aggregates, never individual student-like grading.
LAs may see aggregates only (patterns, not individuals; no names, no scores).
These are platform policy, enforced by the Platform Manager, not per-engagement choices.

This is the local instance of the cross-cutting “patterns, not individuals” rule (§6.4): every IS-facing analytic is aggregate by default; surfacing an individual requires an explicit, logged action.

What it feeds

Strategist Insights in the IS Context Brief — pulse aggregates [E3].
Notable outliers / pattern-based flags [E4] — still pattern-framed, not grades.
Cohort readiness signal the LA can act on before the engagement.

Why “not a test” matters

The audience is teachers, not students. A scored pre-test would create evaluation anxiety and undermine the “this is not evaluative” trust posture that the whole context layer depends on. The diagnostic framing keeps participation honest, which keeps the readiness signal accurate.

Open questions

Are the 3 MCQs per-workshop or per-cohort? (Authored per workshop, mapped to focus points.)
How are aggregates thresholded into “notable outliers” without re-introducing scoring?
See open-questions.md.