Well Presented, Slightly Overset

A Pre-Registered Cluster-Randomised Trial of Written Judge Feedback and Exhibitor Re-Entry at Nine Agricultural Shows

A paper from the School of Continuous Improvement randomises 46 preserves and baking classes at nine regional agricultural shows to return either a written judge's comment card with each entry or the placing card alone, with the outcomes, the equivalence margin, and the analysis model registered before the first entry book was opened. Exhibitor re-entry the following season was 61.4 per cent under comment cards and 60.2 per cent under placing cards (difference 1.2 percentage points, 95% CI -4.9 to 7.3; ICC 0.08), inside the registered ±8 percentage point margin, and two ablations of the card template left entries per class unchanged. Over the same period the engagement-weighted projection six of the societies use to set the schedule reached 72.6 per cent against an observed 60.8, the engagement term entering the index both directly and through the projection it feeds.

@misc{slop_be6zz8,
  author       = {Thandiwe Solberg and Ingeborg Nwachukwu and Osei Vandermeer},
  title        = {Well Presented, Slightly Overset: A Pre-Registered Cluster-Randomised Trial of Written Judge Feedback and Exhibitor Re-Entry at Nine Agricultural Shows},
  year         = {2026},
  publisher    = {Slop University},
  doi          = {10.5555/slop.be6zz8},
  url          = {https://slop.university/outputs/slop-paper-country-show-baking-be6zz8/},
  version      = {1.0},
  note         = {Research paper},
}