NCES responses to OMB questions

TO: Rochelle W. Martinez

OMB Desk Officer

THROUGH: Kathy Axt, RIMS

Edith McArthur, NCES Clearance Coordinator

FROM: Bernard Greene and Peter Tice

FRSS Project Officers

SUBJECT: Responses to OMB questions on the FRSS Teachers’ Use of Educational

Technology in US Public Schools

Thank you for your careful review and comments on our proposed survey of teachers’ use of technology. Below are our responses. Please contact us if you have further questions.

1. What is the timeline for conducting this survey as well as the two other surveys?

Below are the data collection start dates for each of the three educational technology surveys.

District Survey: The mailout date was changed from June 2008 to August 2008. This was done to allow collection of fall 2008 data, rather than data for the previous school year.

School Survey. Mailing of the survey is planned for September 2008.

Teacher Survey. Collection of teacher sampling lists will begin in September 2008 and be coordinated with the collection of the school survey. Mailing of teacher questionnaires is planned for January 2009.

2. When will OMB receive the other two collections for review?

The OMB packages for the District and Teacher Surveys have been submitted (as described below). The OMB package for Educational Technology in U.S. Public Schools will be submitted under the FRSS system clearance (OMB 1850-0733) the week of June 9, 2008.

The package for Educational Technology in Public School Districts was submitted under the FRSS system clearance (OMB 1850-0733).

The survey, Teachers’ Use of Educational Technology in U.S. Public Schools was a regular OMB submission, not under the FRSS system clearance, because person-level collections are not included in the FRSS system clearance. The clearance package was submitted April 30, 2008 and the 60-day Federal Register notice appeared May 6, 2008. The OMB information is: Collection # 3677, OMB Control-version (03677) 1850-NEW-v.1.

3. Confidentiality: The QRIS OMB package indicates that "Each respondent will be assured that all information identifying them or their school will be kept confidential in compliance with the Education Sciences Reform Act of 2002 (P.L. 107-279)." There is no pledge on the questionnaire, and the statement in the letter is vague and weak. Please change this to conform more closely to other NCES collections, including an explicit reference to the statute.

We will add the following to the cover letter: Your answers may be used only for statistical purposes and may not be disclosed, or used, in identifiable form for any other purpose unless otherwise compelled by law. (Public Law 107-279, Education Sciences Reform Act, Section 183)

4. Please see embedded comments in the questionnaire, attached, for your response.

Comment 1: As stated above, we will add a sentence referring to the Education Sciences Reform Act of 2002.

Comment 2: For Q9, respondents to feasibility calls indicated that their districts often do multiple activities with older computers. Districts may handle computers of different types or ages in different ways. All pretest respondents were able to answer this question and answered “yes” to more than one activity.

Comment 3: For Q15, we found during feasibility calls that some districts require teachers to take professional development in a topic area, but the district does not offer professional development in that topic. Therefore, a respondent could answer “no” to part 1 and “yes” to part 2. To clarify this for respondents, we will change the instruction at the end of the question to: (Please answer both parts for each item. Even if a topic is not offered, please report whether it is required.)

5. Would it be feasible to include annual amount spent on educational technology by districts? Specifically, we are interested in the annual amount spent at the district level and the composition of the funds used (federal/state/local).

During the survey development, we tested several questions for collecting district budget information for educational technology, including a question on the composition of funds. We found that these questions were very burdensome and generally required different district staff than those answering the rest of the survey. The data could not be collected within the restrictions of FRSS for respondent burden.

6. Please clarify how many schools were contacted during the "four rounds of feasibility calls" as well as under what approval this and other referenced developmental work was conducted.

During feasibility calls, respondents were not required to complete the questionnaire, but rather to review and give feedback about the survey. These calls were conducted over an extended period (April 2007 through January 2008) and the questionnaire for each round was substantially different than in the previous rounds. We contacted 9 or fewer respondents for each round, as shown below.

District Survey Feasibility Calls

Round 1: 4 respondents, completed April 2007

Round 2: 5 respondents, completed September 2007

Round 3: 7 respondents, completed November 2007

Round 4: 6 respondents, completed December 2007

School Survey Feasibility Calls

Round 1: 4 respondents, completed April 2007

Round 2: 7 respondents, completed September 2007

Round 3: 9 respondents, completed November 2007

Round 4: 6 respondents, completed January 2008