This Upward Bound (UB) study, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education, focuses on the implementation strategies of all regular UB projects. To do so, project directors will be asked to complete a 40 minute survey. This survey will serve two main purposes:
1. To describe the services and strategies that Upward Bound grantees implement. Upward Bound projects are required to provide a wide-range of services, and are allowed to provide other services as well. The survey will attempt to capture program offerings, requirements, and features of the program that participants experience and which may improve their prospects of successfully competing high school, entering college, and completing college.
2. To provide input into the decision-making process to identify a strategy to test as part of a random assignment demonstration. ED has contracted with a research team to (1) conduct a rigorous evaluation of college savings accounts in the context of the GEAR UP Program and (2) under an option that could be exercised by ED, conduct a random assignment demonstration of one or more promising strategies that could be implemented in an Upward Bound context to improve participant outcomes. This survey of UB grantees will probe into specific UB programmatic areas to identify to determine the prevalence of different implementation strategies and obtain a more complete picture on how some of these strategies are implemented. The results of this survey will inform the UB community as a whole as well as the planned future work noted above.
The grantee survey will be conducted with all 820 regular Upward Bound projects in the spring of 2013. Preliminary results from the survey, which will be shared internally within ED in late Spring 2013, will help inform the selection of a yet-to-be determined promising strategy or strategies for a possible experimental study that could be implemented in a set of UB grantees. ED will decide whether to exercise the option for a study of promising strategies in Upward Bound by June 2013, based, in large part, on the findings from the survey of UB grantees.
Additionally, IES plans to publicly release the findings from the survey of UB grantees through a report that will require approval by the IES Standards and Review Office. This report will be of great interest to program providers and researchers concerned about college access programs in light of the recent changes to the Upward Bound program that were made in the 2012 grant competition. One of the important questions arising from the UB 2012 grant competition is what type of approaches or strategies UB projects initiated in an effort to reduce the cost of implementing key program components while not reducing the number of students served. For example, a review of 2012 UB grant applications revealed that UB applicants proposed introducing the use of various technologically-based approaches to delivering some program components. The UB grantee survey is intended to identify and describe the specific strategies that UB projects actually implement to fulfill their grant objectives in conducting required program components.
US Code:
20 USC Chapter 28
Name of Law: Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008
This is a new collection, therefore all burden is considered a program change. The collection will result in 274 responses and 183 burden hours annually.
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.
UB Evite_20130712.docx
30D Fed Reg notice.pdf
MS TRIO PD Survey Instrument