NIST Summer Institute for Middle School Science Teachers

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)

Summer Institute for Middle School Science Teachers

Customer Satisfaction Survey

OMB Control No. 0693-0031

Expiration Date 02/29/2012

Supporting Statement:

1. Explain who will be surveyed and why the group is appropriate to survey.

In 2007, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) initiated a two-week Summer Institute for 12 Montgomery County Public School (MCPS) science teachers as a professional development pilot program that was aligned with the school system’s science curriculum. A second session was conducted with 16 MCPS teachers in the summer of 2008. The plan is to continue holding summer session in the coming years—with a goal of reaching approximately 20 middle school (Grades 6, 7, and 8) science teachers per session.

The format for the summer sessions is a combination of short interactive lectures and laboratory demonstrations/experiments, combined with time spent with selected NIST staff in the laboratory, for limited hands-on research. The Summer Institute is designed to allow teachers to see measurement research in a real-world environment, to give teachers practical laboratory examples suitable for classroom presentation, and to cultivate mentoring relationships with NIST scientists that the participants will draw upon in the future.

The Summer Institute strives to improve the participating MCPS middle school teachers’ content knowledge and instructional practices in scientific disciplines. It provides a chance not only for the teachers to gain ideas to bring back to their students, but to build mentoring relationships with NIST scientists that reinforce their confidence in their command of the subject matter. The program has significant potential to improve teacher content knowledge and enthusiasm in their subject matter.

It is essential that NIST understand the best practices for developing and implementing high quality professional development for middle school teachers. The collection of the requested data will enable NIST program officers to enhance the quality and responsiveness of the professional development opportunities that are made available to future Summer Institutes participants. The need for this incentive would be justified for specific reasons.  Since the number of respondents is small in numbers, a 100% response rate would be crucial in obtaining quality data.  Also the data received would allow NIST program offices the ability to improve development opportunities for future participants.  In addition, the contractor administering the survey has shown that previous experience that such incentives will improve response rates.

The information to be collected in this survey represents the minimum effort required to evaluate customer satisfaction with the professional development provided by the NIST Summer Institute. It is expected that the survey will take one hour for each respondent. Individual respondents will not be asked to participate in more than one survey and the survey will only be administered once (at the end of the 2008-09 school year).

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2. Explain how the survey was developed including consultation with interested parties, pre-testing, and responses to suggestions for improvement.

The development of the survey was based on previous surveys that Westat (the contractor responsible for conducting the evaluation) had used to evaluate similar educational programs, and it was optimized for the group to be surveyed in this program. Development of the final version of this survey was done in conjunction with the NIST program coordinators and utilizing pertinent areas of both the MCPS middle school science curriculum and topics presented during the NIST Summer Institute.

3. Explain how the survey will be conducted, how customers will be sampled if fewer than all customers will be surveyed, expected response rate, and actions your agency plans to take to improve the response rate.

All 16 middle school science teachers who participated in the second year (2008) of the NSIT Summer Institute will be asked to participate in the survey. The participants will be contacted by NIST via email requesting that they complete an electronic version of the survey and send the completed form to Westat. Respondents will have the choice to complete the electronic version of the survey, or print out the survey and mail it back to Westat. Upon completion of the survey, respondents will receive a $50 gift card from a local bookstore (sent through Westat). Individuals who do not complete the survey within the two-week timeframe will receive a follow-up phone call from either the NIST representative responsible for overseeing the Summer Institute, a representative from Westat, or both. The purpose will be to encourage their completion of the survey. The expected response rate is 100 percent.

4. Describe how the results of the survey will be analyzed and used to generalize the results to the entire customer population.

The data will be used to systematically examine if the professional development that teachers receive met their content and pedagogical needs, whether the professional development provided useful tools that can ultimately be applied in their classrooms, and how the professional development might be improved to meet the needs of future participants. The report will rely on simple descriptive statistics to summarize feedback from participants about their experiences in the NIST Summer Institute.

This information will inform professional development efforts at future Summer Institutes in order to enhance the satisfaction of participating middle school teachers. The results of this study will be prepared as a technical report for NIST that will use the findings to inform development and revise practices for future Summer Institutes.

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