NASA SOI OMB Package #1 Part B 4-6-11

SUPPORTING STATEMENT

FOR OMB CLEARANCE

PART B

NASA Summer of Innovation FY2011

PARENT CONSENT FORM/SURVEY & AWARDEE PLANNING DATA COLLECTION

National Aeronautics and Science Administration

Revised April 5, 2011

Part B: Collection of Information Employing Statistical Methods

Part A describes the data collection that needs to be conducted before June 2011, including the parent consent form, parent survey, and the awardee planning data.¹ What follows is a discussion of sampling methods for the collection of this data only. The sampling methods for the student and teacher surveys will be described in a forthcoming second package to be submitted once NASA has announced the SoI awards and the evaluation design is finalized.

B.1 Respondent Universe and Sampling Methods

The Summer of Innovation (SoI) Project FY2011 includes three types of awards: national awardees, NASA centers, and mini-grants, of which the first two will be included in the national evaluation. NASA will fund 10 national awardees each expected to reach 2,500 students and 10 NASA centers each expected to reach 1,500 students. The national awardees are also each expected to reach 150 teachers. To meet these requirements, each awardee may implement several activities and each NASA center may use more than one partnership. The national evaluation will analyze data separately for the national awardees and NASA center sites.

Description of Sampling Method

The purpose of the national evaluation is to gather data that will inform NASA’s continued development of the program and generate hypotheses for future SoI implementations, as well as to assess whether a more rigorous, summative, impact evaluation would be warranted at a future date. For this package, only the data from the parent consent form/survey will be analyzed using statistical methods. All parents will receive and be asked to complete the parent consent form/survey as part of the program’s registration materials.

Description of the Study Sample

The respondent universe of 40,000 parents is based on NASA requirements of student participation included in the solicitations for the national awards and NASA centers. The national evaluation will need to obtain consent from parents prior to administering any student surveys..As we learned during the pilot, the most appropriate time to request it is during student registration, when the parent is already providing consent for the student’s participation in the program. Requesting it subsequently will not likely generate the response rate we need to sample a representative group of students and may even raise parent suspicion about the evaluation. In addition, NASA will need the demographic data for project monitoring and compliance assessments, thus the data of the universe of SoI participants will be used regardless of whether the student is sampled for the national evaluation.

B.2 Information Collection Procedures

The parent consent/survey will be collected on paper prior to June 2011. Given the descriptive nature of the information to be collected, the use of simple descriptive statistics, such as counts, ranges, and frequency, in conjunction with content analytic methods, is most appropriate for this evaluation.

B.3 Methods to Maximize Response Rates

Several methods will be used to maximize response rates and to address non-response, such as:

• Providing opportunities to complete the survey during the SoI kick-off activities;

• Incorporating the parent consent form in the registration materials;

• Identifying a local site liaison who can assist in gathering parent consent;

• Providing a toll-free number that participants can call to ask questions and verify the legitimacy of the evaluation.

B.4 Test of Procedures

Estimates for parent consent form and survey is based on time requirements from similar surveys conducted on comparable evaluations.

B.5 Individuals Consulted on Statistical Aspects of Design

The plans for statistical analyses for this study were primarily developed by Abt Associates, Inc. and the Education Development Center (EDC). The team is led by Hilary Rhodes, Project Director; Ricky Takai, Principal Investigator; Amanda Parsad, Project Quality Advisor; Kristen Neishi, Deputy Project Director; Melissa Velez, Survey Analysis Task Leader, and K.P. Srinath, Survey Statistician, all of Abt Associates. The surveys were refined by Jacqueline DeLisi, Abigail Levy, and Yueming Jia at EDC. Contact information for these individuals is provided below.

Abt Associates, Inc.
Hilary Rhodes	Project Director	617-520-3516	[email protected]
Ricky Takai	Principal Investigator	301-634-1765	[email protected]
Amanda Parsad	Project Quality Advisor	301-634-1791	[email protected]
Kristen Neishi	Deputy Project Director	301-634-1759	[email protected]
Melissa Velez	Survey Analysis Task Leader	617- 520-2875	[email protected]
K.P. Srinath	Survey Statistician	301-634-1836	[email protected]
Education Development Center
Jacqueline DeLisi	Survey Task Leader	617-969-5979	[email protected]
Abigail Levy	Survey Developer	617-969-5979	[email protected]
Yueming Jia	Survey Developer	617-969-5979	[email protected]

1 This package is the first of two that will be submitted for SoI. It focuses on the data collection efforts prior to June 2011, and thus does not include the data collection necessary to measure student and teacher outcomes (as described in the logic model). Two packages are necessary so that NASA may collect key baseline data – including parent consent and awardee plans for implementation- prior to the start of this year’s activities and also have sufficient time to review grant proposals, make awards, and use the proposal information to inform the evaluation’s sampling and data collection strategies.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration Part B: Collection of Information 3