Treasury will report back to OMB on the results of the survey and with any report published related to the survey.
table that charts list comparision
Inventory as of this Action
Requested
Previously Approved
07/31/2013
6 Months From Approved
03/31/2013
4,531
0
2,000
4,490
0
2,417
0
0
0
Pursuant to the Title XII of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Financial Protection Act (Pub. L. 111-203), the Department of the Treasury is implementing an Assessing Financial Capability Outcomes pilot to determine whether the close integration of financial access (access to an account at a financial institution) and financial education delivered in a timely, relevant, and actionable manner, will create significant impact on the financial behaviors and/or outcomes of participants. The information collected will be used for research, to promote the Treasury's understanding of likely outcomes of financial capability interventions.
CFED requests expedited clearance for the data collection protocols for the Access Financial Capability Outcomes (AFCO) contract (No. TOS-11-F-039 for the Office of Consumer Policy). We are requesting the expedited clearance in order to proceed with data collection at the second site of our youth pilot in Amarillo, Texas in an attempt to meet the timeline dictated by the school district in which we are implementing the pilot.
The State of Texas administers student assessments, the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness or STAAR, in all school districts during the spring semester. In the spring of 2013, the tests are scheduled to be administered in the Amarillo Independent School District in March and April. The District does not allow extracurricular programs, such as the AFCO pilot, to be implemented in the classroom during the time that students are being tested. Therefore, the District has stated that the AFCO pilot needs to be completed prior to spring break, which begins March 11. The financial literacy curriculum that we will implement in Amarillo is designed to be taught over six weeks, with the student assessment that we submitted for PRA approval administered before and after the lessons are taught. In order meet that timeline, we must begin data collection the week of January 28, 2013. We cannot push the launch of pilot to after the testing period as we would not have sufficient time to administer the financial education to both the treatment and control groups before the end of the school year. We currently plan to teach the lessons to the control group following the STAAR testing period.
In addition, the modifications to the survey instruments and research consent forms have not changed significantly from the first year of the project, and the changes that were made could not have been anticipated when designing the protocols that were previously approved. We got lower rates of parental consent in the first year of the pilot in Eau Claire, Wisconsin than we anticipated based the school districtÂs experience with parental response. This low parental consent rate limited our ability to analyze the data collected in the first year of the project, which we is why we are collecting additional data in Eau Claire and implementing the pilot in a second site in Amarillo. In an attempt to increase parents response rate, we have eliminated the parent survey and have combined the parent consent forms for participating in the research and sharing account transaction data. In the student assessment, we changed three questions to better measure concepts in the Texas curriculum standards and added one additional question as a proxy for parents banking status as we are no longer collecting information from parents. As we did not know that we would have additional funding for the second year of the project and that we would be working with a school district in Texas during the second year, we could not have anticipated that aligning our student assessment with Texas curriculum standards would be necessary.
We appreciate your consideration of this request. In planning the second year of the research in Amarillo, we have had to ask the administrators and teachers in Amarillo to be flexible on many aspects of the implementation. We would very much like to respect their timeline, the one area in which they cannot be flexible.
The increase in burden is due to the addition of a second testing group in Amarillo, Texas. This increase is netted against a decrease in burden for the adult participants who are now only participating in follow-up questioning. The total increase in burden is 2,073 hours.
On behalf of this Federal agency, I certify that the collection of information encompassed by this request complies with 5 CFR 1320.9 and the related provisions of 5 CFR 1320.8(b)(3).
The following is a summary of the topics, regarding the proposed collection of information, that the certification covers:
(i) Why the information is being collected;
(ii) Use of information;
(iii) Burden estimate;
(iv) Nature of response (voluntary, required for a benefit, or mandatory);
(v) Nature and extent of confidentiality; and
(vi) Need to display currently valid OMB control number;
If you are unable to certify compliance with any of these provisions, identify the item by leaving the box unchecked and explain the reason in the Supporting Statement.
AFCO data collection sources.docx
AFCO Recommended Research Project Designs.pdf
Youth Program - Amarillo