Part_A_ECLS-K2011_Spring_3rd_Grade_FS-4th_Gr_Recruitment-5th_Gr_Tracking

Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 2010-11 (ECLS-K:2011)

Spring Third-Grade National Data Collection, Fourth-Grade Recruitment, and Fifth-Grade Tracking

OMB Clearance Package

# 1850-0750 v.15

Supporting Statement

Part A

Prepared by

National Center for Education Statistics

U.S. Department of Education

Table of Contents

Section Page

A.1 Circumstances Making Collection of Information Necessary A-1

A.1.1 Purpose of This Submission A-1

A.1.2 Legislative Authorization A-1

A.1.3 Prior Related Studies A-2

A.1.4 ECLS-K:2011 Study Design for the Spring Third-Grade National Data Collection A-2

A.1.5 Pilot Tests of the Third-, Fourth-, and Fifth-Grade Direct Child Assessment, Child Questionnaire, and Online School Administrator Questionnaire A-8

A.1.5.1 Pilot Tests of the Third-, Fourth-, and Fifth-Grade

Direct Child Assessment and Child Questionnaire A-9

A.1.5.2 Pilot Test of the Online School Administrator

Questionnaire A-11

A.2 Purposes and Uses of the Data A-13

A.2.1 Research Issues Addressed in the ECLS-K:2011 A-13

A.2.1.1 Developments in Early Education Policy A-14

A.2.1.2 School Readiness A-16

A.2.1.3 Executive Functioning A-17

A.2.1.4 Demographic Changes A-18

A.2.1.5 Hearing Impairments in the Early Elementary School Years A-20

A.3 Use of Improved Information Technology A-19

A.4 Efforts to Identify Duplication A-21

A.5 Method Used to Minimize Burden on Small Businesses A-21

A.6 Frequency of Data Collection A-22

A.7 Special Circumstances of Data Collection A-22

A.8 Consultants Outside the Agency A-22

A.9 Provision of Payments or Gifts to Respondents A-27

A.9.1 School Incentive A-28

A.9.2 School Administrator A-28

A.9.3 Teachers A-29

A.9.4 School Coordinators A-31

A.10 Assurance of Confidentiality A-31

A.11 Sensitive Questions A-34

Contents (continued)

Section Page

A.12 Estimated Response Burden A-38

A.13 Estimates of Cost to Respondents A-39

A.14 Annualized Cost to the Federal Government A-39

A.15 Reasons for Changes in Response Burden and Costs A-42

A.16 Publication Plans and Time Schedule A-42

A.17 Approval for Not Displaying the Expiration Date for OMB Approval A-43

A.18 Exceptions to the Certification Statement A-43

Appendixes

A Child Questionnaire

B Child Questions for Hearing Evaluations

C Parent Interview

D General Classroom Teacher Questionnaires

E Special Education Teacher Questionnaires

F School Administrator Questionnaires

G Links Between Instrument Items, Covered Constructs, and Related Research Questions

H Respondent Materials

I Memorandum on Item and Construct Discussions with the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS)

Tables

A-1 Federal agency consultants for ECLS-K and ECLS-K:2011 A-24

A-2 Other organization consultants for ECLS-K A-25

A-3 ECLS-K:2011 First TRP meeting attendee list (November 2008) A-25

A-4 ECLS-K:2011 Second TRP meeting attendee list (March 2011) A-25

A-5 ECLS-K:2011 CRP members lists, by panel A-26

A-6 Study costs per year of the contract for the third- and fourth-grade data collections A-39

A-7 Estimated respondent burden for the national spring third-grade data collection, previously cleared third-grade tracking and recruitment activities, recruitment for the spring fourth-grade data collection, and sample tracking for the spring fourth-grade and spring fifth-grade data collections A-40

A-8 Operational schedule for ECLS-K:2011 data collection activities A-43

Exhibits

A-1 Examples of important developments relevant to the ECLS-K:2011 A-14

A-2 Confidentiality Pledge A-33

A.1 Circumstances Making Collection of Information Necessary

A.1.1 Purpose of This Submission

The Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 2010-11 (ECLS-K:2011), sponsored by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) within the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) of the U.S. Department of Education (ED), is a survey that focuses on children’s early school experiences beginning with kindergarten and continuing through the fifth grade. It includes the collection of data from parents, teachers, school administrators, and nonparental care providers, as well as direct child assessments. Like its sister study, the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998-99 (ECLS-K),¹ the ECLS-K:2011 is exceptionally broad in its scope and coverage of child development, early learning, and school progress, drawing together information from multiple sources to provide rich data about the population of children who were kindergartners in the 2010-11 school year. Data collections to date have been conducted for NCES by Westat, with the Educational Testing Service (ETS) as the subcontractor developing the child assessments. Clearances for studying the ECLS-K:2011 cohort were granted for the fall 2009 field test data collection, fall 2010 and spring 2011 kindergarten national data collections, fall 2011 and spring 2012 first-grade national data collections, and fall 2012 and spring 2013 second-grade national data collection (OMB No. 1850-0750). Several generic clearance requests for testing various components of the study have also been approved (OMB 1850-0803).

This submission requests OMB’s approval for the spring 2014 third-grade national data collection, sample recruitment for the fourth-grade national data collection, and tracking for the fifth-grade national data collection. This submission also includes carry-over burden from the last approved national data collection package (OMB# 1850-0750 v.12-13) for the activities that will not be completed by the time this package is expected to be approved.

A.1.2 Legislative Authorization

The ECLS-K:2011 is conducted by NCES in close consultation with other offices and organizations within and outside the U.S. Department of Education. The ECLS-K:2011 is authorized by law under the Education Sciences Reform Act of 2002 (20 U.S. Code Section 9543):

1. “The Statistics Center shall collect, report, analyze, and disseminate statistical data related to education in the United States and in other nations, including -- (7) conducting longitudinal and special data collections necessary to report on the condition and progress of education;”

A.1.3 Prior Related Studies

The ECLS-K:2011 is part of a longitudinal studies program. The two prior ECLS studies pertain to two cohorts—the kindergarten class of 1998-99 cohort and a birth cohort. Together these cohorts provide the range and breadth of data required to more fully describe and understand children’s education experiences, early learning, development, and health in the late 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s.

The birth cohort of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS-B) followed a national sample of children born in the year 2001, from birth through kindergarten entry. The ECLS-B focused on the characteristics of children and their families that influence children’s school readiness and first experiences with formal schooling, as well as children’s early health and in- and out-of-home experiences.

The ECLS‑K followed a nationally representative cohort of children from kindergarten through eighth grade. The base-year data were collected in the fall and spring of the 1998-99 school year, when the sampled children were in kindergarten. A total of 21,260 kindergartners throughout the nation participated by having a child assessment and/or parent interview conducted during that school year. Five more waves of data were collected: in fall and spring of the 1999-2000 school year when most, but not all, of the children who participated in the base year were in first grade; in the spring of the 2001-02 school year when most, but not all, of the children who participated in the base year were in third grade; in the spring of the 2003-04 school year when most, but not all, of the children who participated in the base year were in fifth grade; and in the spring of the 2006-07 school year when most, but not all, of the children who participated in the base year were in eighth grade.²

A.1.4 ECLS-K:2011 Study Design for the Spring Third-Grade National Data Collection

The sample for the ECLS-K:2011 is a representative sample of children across the country who attended kindergarten in 2010-11. The sample was selected using a multistage probability design. In the first stage, 90 primary sampling units (PSUs) that are counties or groups of counties were selected with probability proportional to size (PPS). In the second stage, public and private schools offering kindergarten or educating 5-year-olds in an ungraded setting were selected, also with PPS. The third-stage sampling units were children in kindergarten or children of kindergarten age in ungraded schools or classrooms. Children were selected within each sampled school using equal probability systematic sampling, with a higher sampling rate for Asian and Pacific Islanders (APIs) so as to achieve a minimum required sample size for APIs.

The base-year (i.e., kindergarten) data were collected in the fall and spring of the 2010-11 school year. The fall first-grade data collection was conducted in fall 2011 when most, but not all, of the sampled children were in first grade. The spring first-grade data collection was conducted in spring 2012 when most, but not all, of the sampled children were in first grade. The fall second-grade data collection was conducted in fall 2012 when most, but not all, of the sampled children were in second grade, and the spring second-grade data collection was conducted in spring 2013 when most, but not all, of the sampled children were in second grade.³

Similar to the previous years’ spring data collections, the national spring third-grade data collection will include direct child assessments, height and weight measurements, parent interviews, and school administrator and teacher (both regular classroom and special education teacher) questionnaires. As in all prior rounds of data collection, computer assisted interviewing (CAI) will be the mode of data collection for the child assessment and the parent interviews. Also as done in the past, school administrator and teacher data will be collected via hard-copy self-administered questionnaires. New to the ECLS-K:2011 in the third-grade round, children will also complete an audio-CASI (computer assisted self-interview) version of a child questionnaire. As was done in the fall second-grade round, a subsample of children will also participate in a hearing evaluation.

Cognitive Assessments. As in the kindergarten, first-, and second-grade data collections for the ECLS-K:2011, a direct cognitive assessment will be administered in the spring 2014 third-grade collection. The cognitive assessment will measure the domains of reading, mathematics, science, and executive functioning. It will be administered directly to the sampled children through a one-on-one assessment employing age- and grade-appropriate items. The structure of the ECLS-K:2011 third-grade reading, mathematics, and science assessments will be two-stage, the same as the ECLS-K:2011 previous round assessments.⁴ That is, for the cognitive assessments in reading, math, and science, all children first will be administered a routing test. Performance on the routing test will determine which one of three second-stage tests (low, middle, or high difficulty) will be appropriate for the child’s skill level; the child will then be administered the appropriate second-stage assessment form. The executive function measures (i.e., Numbers Reversed and Dimensional Change Card Sort tasks) are not two-stage assessments.

Though new items were developed for inclusion in the third-grade ECLS-K:2011 reading, mathematics, and science assessments, a majority of items in the assessments will be the same as those included in the assessments from the earlier rounds of the ECLS-K:2011 and from the ECLS-K kindergarten, first-grade, third-grade, and/or fifth-grade assessments. Items from earlier rounds of the ECLS-K:2011 are included to allow for the measurement of growth or gains in knowledge and skills as children age. Items from the ECLS-K are included in order to enable researchers to conduct cross-cohort analyses using the assessment data.

The spring third-grade cognitive assessment, like the spring second-grade cognitive assessment, will use a computerized version of the Dimensional Change Card Sort (DCCS) task, which measures children’s executive functioning (specifically, cognitive flexibility). Although administered as a non-computerized (i.e., physical card) version in the kindergarten and first-grade rounds, the computerized version to be used in the spring third-grade round was successfully used in the fall and spring second-grade rounds. In the physical card version, children sorted cards into trays based on sorting rules provided to them by the assessor. The task is identical in the computerized version, only the instructions are provided by the computer and children sort pictures similar to the cards on the computer screen. The reason for the switch to the computerized version is that it allows the assessment to capture response time, which is not possible using the physical card version. When assessing cognitive flexibility, it becomes more important to capture response time as children get older. Feedback from field staff indicates that the children enjoy the task and see the computerized DCCS as a break from the cognitive assessment questions.

The Numbers Reversed task, the second assessment of executive function included in the ECLS-K:2011 child assessment, is identical to the Numbers Reversed task included in the kindergarten, first-grade, and second-grade data collections. This task assesses the child’s working memory. It is a backward digit span task that requires the child to repeat an orally presented sequence of numbers in the reverse order in which the numbers are presented. For example, if presented with the sequence “3…5,” the child would be expected to say “5…3.” Children are given five 2-number sequences. If the child gets three consecutive 2-number sequences incorrect, then the Numbers Reversed task ends. If the child is successful with sequences of two numbers, the child is then given five 3-number sequences. The sequences become increasingly longer, up to a maximum of eight numbers, until the child gets three consecutive number sequences incorrect (or completes all number sequences).

Child Questionnaire. Prior to the start of the direct cognitive assessment, children will be asked to complete a self-administered, computerized questionnaire. The Child Questionnaire (CQ) will be administered on a computer using audio-CASI, a software system that reads the instructions and questionnaire items to the child, while the same text is displayed on a laptop’s screen. Children will choose answers to the questions by selecting responses directly on the touch-sensitive screen of the laptop. After answering a question, the child will click on a “next” button and continue to the next question in the self-administered questionnaire.

The majority of items in the CQ come from the Self-Description Questionnaire (SDQ; Marsh 1992); other questions are drawn from the National Institute of Health’s Toolbox for the Assessment of Neurological and Behavioral Function and the other published scales noted below. (Appendix A includes the programmer specifications for the audio-CASI child questionnaire, which indicate the exact instructions to be provided to the child and the items that will be administered.) The CQ consists of 37 statements, which children will respond to using various 4- and 5-point rating scales. Items include those measuring children’s interest in reading, mathematics, and science; relationships with peers; occurrences of peer victimization; and overall happiness with different aspects of life (e.g., attention from parents, hobbies and free time activities). Depending on the rating scale, children will be asked to indicate how true each statement is for them or how often they feel certain emotions or experience certain behaviors.

The child questionnaire is a new component for the ECLS-K:2011, but a similar instrument (the SDQ in its entirety) was successfully used in the ECLS-K third- and fifth-grade data collections as a hard-copy self-report instrument. The ECLS-K child questionnaire was revised for the ECLS-K:2011 based on the recommendations of a Socioemotional Content Review Panel (CRP) that was convened in October 2012. Changes made to the instrument include the following:

• Items asking children about their interest and competence in “all school subjects” were edited to specifically refer to science. Similar items on reading and math remain in the questionnaire.

• Questions on externalizing and internalizing problem behaviors were dropped. Reports of externalizing and internalizing problem behaviors are still obtained from parents and teachers.

• Items already tested and validated in other studies were added to the ECLS-K:2011 CQ instrument to measure children’s prosocial behavior (Zimmer-Gembeck, Geiger, and Crick 2005; Crick and Grotpeter 1995), fear of negative evaluation (La Greca and Stone 1993), peer victimization (adapted from Espelage and Holt 2001), and life satisfaction (NIH Toolbox for the Assessment of Neurological and Behavioral Function 2012).

Data from the national administration of the CQ will enable researchers to compare students’ self-ratings of interest and competence in various school subjects, as well as their feelings of social distress and life satisfaction, to the students’ performance on assessment items in the reading, math, and science domains.

As mentioned above, in the ECLS-K, the child questionnaire was administered using a paper form. The assessor read the items and response categories to the child and the child marked his or her answer on the hard-copy form. This procedure was initiated to ensure that the child’s reading ability did not hinder or affect the administration of the items. At the end of the assessment after the child had returned to his or her classroom, the assessor entered the child’s responses from the paper form into a laptop.

For the spring 2014 third-grade data collection, an audio-CASI version of the child questionnaire will be used. Generally, self-administered procedures evoke a greater sense of privacy, which leads to more self-disclosure (Sudman and Bradburn 1974; Tourangeau and Smith 1996; Turner et al. 1998). Because the respondent is controlling the pace of the question-answer process, this gives the respondent more time to process the questions being asked and give more accurate answers, which is even more critical in surveying specific populations such as children (De Leeuw and Collins 1997; Turner et al. 1998).

To accommodate the variation in children’s reading ability levels, item text and response options are audio recorded and read to the child, who will be listening to the recording through headphones. Headphones will be used to make it easier for the child to hear the item text, to limit distractions from other children in the assessment area, and to enhance the feeling of privacy (De Leeuw, Hox, Kef, and Van Hattum 1997). Only the child will be able to hear the question being asked, and after an answer is provided it will disappear from the screen.

Physical Measurements and Hearing Evaluations. In addition to the child questionnaire and the cognitive assessment, the ECLS-K:2011 direct child assessments will include measures of the children’s height and weight and, for selected children, hearing evaluations.

In the fall 2012 second-grade round of data collection, hearing sensitivity and middle ear functioning were measured in a 30 percent subsample of the national sample. These hearing evaluations will again be conducted with the hearing subsample children in the spring third-grade round. The combination of two rounds of hearing data on the same subsample of children will provide important information on the prevalence and persistence of hearing problems in children during the elementary school years.

The hearing evaluation protocol used in fall 2012 will be used again in the spring third-grade data collection, and the entire evaluation is expected to take about 15 minutes. The protocol includes:

• Asking the child a short set of hearing-related questions (appendix B). The results of these questions will aid analysts in the interpretation of the collected evaluation data;

• Conducting a brief visual inspection of the ears;

• Obtaining measures of middle ear function in both ears; and

• Obtaining specific audiometric thresholds. It is expected that initially thresholds at three primary frequencies will be obtained in each ear (2000, 4000, and 8000 Hz, with a retest of 2000 Hz for test reliability). Additional frequencies (1000, 3000, and 6000 Hz) will be obtained as time and children’s attention permit.

As part of data collection, ambient noise levels in the testing rooms will be obtained because background noise can affect measurement. As in the fall second-grade round, the equipment specified by the cosponsoring agency (National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders; NIDCD) for evaluating hearing and measuring ambient noise will be used. Each participating child’s parent will receive a letter with information about his or her child’s hearing evaluation a month or two after the evaluation.

Parent Interviews. A parent interview will be administered to one parent/guardian of each child in the ECLS-K:2011 study. The interviews will be developed in English and then translated into Spanish. For parents who speak neither English nor Spanish, home and community interpreters will be used when available to administer the English-language version to parents, translating the English version to the parent’s native language during the interview. The spring third-grade parent interview includes the same types of questions (in terms of topics and format) that have been previously fielded in the ECLS-K, earlier rounds of the ECLS-K:2011, and other NCES studies (e.g., the ECLS-B, the National Household Education Surveys Program (NHES), the Education Longitudinal Survey of 2002 (ELS:2002), and the National Education Longitudinal Survey of 1988 (NELS:88)). More specifically, the parent instrument will ask about parent involvement with the school; family structure; the use of a non-English language in the home; the home environment; before-and after- school care; nonresident parents; parental warmth, discipline, and communication with the child; the parent’s psychological well-being and health; household food security; parent education; parent employment; and household income. Parents will also be asked to report on their children’s experiences with peer victimization, social skills and behaviors, executive function, physical activity, health, and disabilities. There are some new items included in the third-grade parent interview that are intended to indirectly assess working memory, or the child’s capacity to hold information in mind and manipulate that information in order to reach a goal. Working memory is a component of executive function and is considered to be important for success in school. These new items ask about the child’s ability to follow multi-step instructions and persist towards a goal without reminders.

Teacher Questionnaires. Teachers of sampled children will complete the teacher questionnaires. The teacher-/classroom-level instrument (“TQA”) includes questions about the teachers’ own background and education, class materials, and teaching practices. The TQA questionnaire also has teachers provide information on the types of materials being used to teach the ECLS-K:2011 students, what and how the students are being taught, the characteristics of the students’ classrooms, and the background and experience of the teachers. Teachers will also be given a short curriculum-level questionnaire (TQS) with items asking about the topics and skills taught in the classroom in the areas of reading, math, science, and social studies. If the teacher is unable to answer some of the questions in the TQS questionnaire because he or she does not teach the specific subject being asked about, the teacher is asked to pass the questionnaire to another teacher who is able to answer those particular questions. The instructions at the start of the TQS questionnaire describe who should complete it; ECLS-K:2011 field staff will be trained to assist teachers in determining to whom the TQS questionnaire should be given if the general classroom teacher is not an appropriate respondent for selected questions. (See appendix D for the TQA and TQS questionnaires.)

Teachers also will be asked to complete a child-specific questionnaire (“TQC”) about each of the sampled children in their classroom. The questionnaire will contain items about children’s skills in the areas of language and literacy, mathematics, science, and executive functioning; children’s social skills and behaviors; children’s experiences with peer victimization (as a victim and as the aggressor); and information about program placements and special services that each child may receive. These data obtained from teachers can be compared to the results of direct assessments administered to the sampled children. As results from additional years of assessments become available, a picture of children’s skills over time can be developed. (See appendix D for the TQC questionnaire.)

Special education teachers and related service providers will be asked to complete questionnaires for ECLS-K:2011 students with an Individualized Education Program (IEP) on file at the school. The information obtained through these questionnaires will be useful in examining special education curricula and the services being received by children with disabilities. (See appendix E for the Special Education Teacher questionnaires.)

School Administrator Questionnaires. The School Administrator Questionnaire (SAQ) will be completed by the school administrators in the schools attended by the children in the study.⁵ There will be two versions of the questionnaire: one for schools that completed an SAQ in a prior round of the study (“continuing schools”) and one for any school that did not previously complete the SAQ, either because the school is a new school into which an ECLS-K:2011 student has transferred or because the school did not complete the SAQ in any previous study round. In order to reduce respondent burden, the administrator questionnaire for continuing schools will not contain questions included in the SAQ in previous rounds about characteristics that are unlikely to change from year to year. The SAQ instrument includes a broad range of questions about the school setting, policies, and practices at both the school level and in specific grades, as well as questions about the school administrator and the teaching staff. These items will help researchers understand the school contexts for ECLS-K:2011 students. Comparisons can be made between children attending different types of schools, including public and private schools (with private schools being further identified as religious or nonreligious); rural, urban, and suburban schools; and schools of different sizes. Data from this questionnaire can be used with data from the child assessments and teacher questionnaires to investigate the degree to which educational outcomes of various groups of children are associated with the differences in the schools that the children attend.

A.1.5 Pilot Tests of the Third-, Fourth-, and Fifth-Grade Direct Child Assessment, Child Questionnaire, and Online School Administrator Questionnaire

Several pilot tests were conducted in the spring of 2013 to test items to be included in the direct child assessments in future rounds of data collection and also to test some changes that were proposed for the study procedures and instrumentation (OMB# 1850-0803 v.75). The goals of the pilot tests included:

• Examining the psychometric characteristics of reading, math, and science items that are being considered for inclusion in the ECLS-K:2011 child assessments in third, fourth, and fifth grade. The items that were tested as part of the pilot test include many developed specifically for the ECLS-K:2011, as well as others that have been used in the ECLS-K, the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS:2002), or the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88) assessments. Pilot testing of the newly-developed and previously-fielded items provided the opportunity to examine the item characteristics with calibration of item difficulties on the same scale for items derived from different sources. Also, feedback on how children responded to the assessment items and suggestions for improving the assessment items were obtained.

• Assessing the feasibility of administering an audio computer-assisted self-interview (audio-CASI) child questionnaire (CQ) in the national third-grade data collection. The pilot test examined the clarity and effectiveness of the assessor instructions, observed children’s reactions to the audio-CASI application, and identified any software or hardware issues with the audio-CASI application, including the laptop and headphones.

• Testing the use of an online School Administrator Questionnaire (SAQ), including evaluation of usability issues with the technology and procedures for an online questionnaire, the effects of an online format on perceived respondent burden, and administrators’ general preferences for an online questionnaire compared to a paper version. Some respondents had responses in the online questionnaire “pre-filled” using data from their completion of the paper version of the questionnaire in order to test if the online administration format would reduce respondent burden for those administrators who have participated in multiple rounds of the study.

A.1.5.1 Pilot Tests of the Third-, Fourth-, and Fifth-Grade Direct Child Assessment, and Child Questionnaire

Sample and Data Collection Procedures for the Assessment Battery and Child Questionnaire Pilot Tests. The assessment battery pilot test sample included 35 elementary schools in 5 geographic regions, in which 2,724 children completed the assessment. Most of the schools included kindergarten through fifth grade, but 18 schools also taught sixth grade. Assessments were conducted with children in third through sixth grade. Sample sizes were calculated to provide at least 700 responses for each item in the cognitive assessment.

The assessment battery pilot test sample was a purposive sample, but attempts were made to include schools from different locales and sectors (i.e., public, non-religious private, and parochial schools), economic diversity, and racial/ethnic diversity. Of the children who participated in the assessment pilot test, 69 percent were white, 32 percent were Hispanic, 5 percent were Black, 3 percent were Asian, and less than one percent were Native Hawaiian/Other Pacific Islander.⁶

In a subset of 10 schools, 265 third- and fourth-graders participated in the feasibility test of the audio-CASI child questionnaire. These children did not complete the child assessment. The subsample was a purposive sample; again, the subset included schools from different locales and sectors and, as much as possible, the child sample was racially/ethnically diverse. Of the children who participated in the CQ pilot test, 62 percent were white, 36 percent were Hispanic, 7 percent were Black, 5 percent were Asian, and less than one percent were Native Hawaiian/Other Pacific Islander.⁷

Participation in the child assessment or CQ component was limited to English-speaking children from schools that are not part of the ECLS-K:2011 national study and have not participated in any prior ECLS-K:2011 field test, pilot test, or cognitive laboratory activities. Children were not eligible to participate if they required accommodations such as a sign language interpreter, Braille, a health care aide or assistive device, or other special arrangements or assistance.

The assessment and CQ pilot tests occurred in April, May, and June of 2013. Data for the assessment battery and child questionnaire pilot tests were collected by twenty-eight field staff. The general data collection methods used in the child pilot tests were largely the same as those that have been used successfully for the data collection rounds of ECLS-K:2011 that have been conducted to date. The assessment visit at each school lasted approximately 4 days.

The assessments were administered as one-on-one direct assessments with questions presented on an easel. Unlike the direct cognitive assessments in the national ECLS-K:2011 data collections which are computer-assisted, in the pilot test assessors recorded children’s answers using a score sheet and pen. In order to test many different items without overburdening the children, the pilot test assessment easels were developed from items divided into four reading forms, two math forms, and two science forms. These forms were spiraled such that each child received one of four versions of the reading assessment and one of two versions of either the math or the science assessment (e.g., reading 1 and math 1, reading 2 and math 2, reading 3 and science 1, reading 4 and science 2, etc.). The administration order of the subject areas was counter balanced (i.e., some easels presented the reading items before the math or science items, whereas other easels presented the reading items after the math or science items) to guard against practice and fatigue effects. Administration of the child assessment lasted approximately 45 minutes to an hour.

In the CQ pilot test, the audio-CASI program presented the item text and response options on a laptop equipped with headphones and a monitor that has stylus input capabilities. Children listened to the task instructions, item text, and response options using headphones while following along on the screen. Children used a stylus to touch their response option on the screen, skipped questions they did not wish to answer, and changed answers if they wished to do so. Administration of the CQ lasted approximately 15 minutes.

Staff was also trained to record their observations about children’s behaviors and responses to both the assessment and the CQ. Each assessor kept a general diary of pilot test experiences, including notes on participants’ reactions to the assessment items. In addition, assessors completed a separate diary specific to the CQ, in which they recorded observations on the audio-CASI and any difficulties the children had interacting with the computer program.

Results of the Assessment Battery Pilot Test. At the time of the submission of this OMB package, the data from the assessment battery pilot test are still being analyzed. In general, however, new items that performed well will be added to the library of existing ECLS-K and ECLS-K:2011 items to create the national 3rd, 4^th, and 5^th grade reading, math, and science assessments.

Results of the CQ Pilot Test. The audio-CASI format was successfully used in the pilot test. Most children did not experience significant difficulty in using the headphones, stylus pen, or the touch-screen functionality of the laptop. The directions to use these technologies were understandable and most children adapted quickly to the format. In addition, the feedback received indicated that most of the children enjoyed the task and the chance to use the computer.

On average, the CQ took 13.76 minutes for children to compete. In order to be included as part of the national assessment, the number of items in the CQ was reduced so that the instrument takes about 10 minutes to complete. Analyses of the ECLS-K:2011 pilot test data and data for similar items fielded in the ECLS-K were conducted to determine which items could be dropped while still maintaining desired content coverage with a sufficient number of items that could be scaled together.

The introductory text, in which the assessor explains the task to the child and how to choose a response and adjust the volume, has been streamlined to be less cumbersome and more efficient.

In addition, because the same laptops will not be available for use in the national data collection, a new laptop with similar capabilities will be selected and used for the third-grade assessments. Field staff and project staff observers also noted some issues with the particular audio-CASI software that was used, such as the program freezing or only displaying certain pieces of text on the screen. Upon review, it has been determined that the software itself is somewhat problematic and likely caused these problems; thus the national CQ will instead be supported by a more updated version of audio-CASI software. The screen appearance and functionality will be very similar to what was used in the field test, and the new software does not have the same problems observed in the pilot test.

A.1.5.2 Pilot Tests of the Online School Administrator Questionnaire (SAQ)

Sample and Data Collection Procedures. The pilot test of the online SAQ was conducted primarily with school administrators from schools that agreed to participate in the child assessment and child questionnaire pilot tests. The sample was supplemented with additional school administrators from schools in districts that agreed to participate in the child pilot tests, even if the schools themselves decided not to participate in the child assessment or CQ pilot tests. Forty-seven administrators agreed to participate in the online SAQ pilot test, and they were randomly placed into one of two treatment groups:

• Returning: Administrators in this group were first asked to complete the paper version of the SAQ that is used in the national data collection. When that SAQ was completed and returned, the data were entered into a database within a week upon receipt of the questionnaire. The administrators were then sent an email asking to complete the same questionnaire online and providing a secure link for access to the survey. Responses to a selected subset of questions from the paper version were uploaded into the online version of the SAQ, so that when the administrator viewed the online SAQ, these responses were pre-filled and available for updating. Returning administrators were also asked some questions soliciting their feedback on the online system at the end of the online SAQ, such as experiences with the paper and online forms, opinions on the online format of the survey, the level of effort needed to complete the questionnaire with pre-filled responses, and the ease-of-use of the online system. Twenty-two respondents were recruited for this treatment group.

• New: Administrators in this group were asked to complete only the online SAQ without any pre-filled responses. They were given a version of feedback questions that did not include questions on the paper SAQ or issues related to pre-filled responses. Twenty-four respondents were recruited for this treatment group.

The online SAQ pilot test occurred during the same time frame as the assessment and CQ pilot tests; that is, April, May, and June of 2013. Once administrators agreed to participate, they were sent either the paper SAQ and a $40 incentive check (if in the returning treatment group), or a welcome letter and $25 incentive check (if in the new treatment group). Participants in the new treatment group were emailed the online survey invitation a few days after the welcome letter was mailed.

The questionnaires and survey invitations were sent from Westat, and field staff followed up with participating administrators to answer questions and remind them about the survey while in the schools for the assessments and/or CQs. One experienced field staff member was selected to continue follow-up telephone calls with administrators, particularly those in schools that were not also participating in the assessment or CQ pilot tests. After about 2 weeks of non-activity on the online survey, reminder emails were also sent, as were emails thanking participants once the online SAQ was completed.

Results of the online SAQ Pilot Test. As of late June 2013, 46 administrators were recruited for the online SAQ pilot test; 22 for the returning treatment group, and 24 for the new treatment group. Fifteen of the administrators in the returning group (68 percent) participated. Twelve administrators (50 percent) from the new treatment group completed the online SAQ.

An analysis of the responses to the debriefing questions indicates that while the respondents were fairly positive about the online format, they did not find it particularly well suited to the School Administrator Questionnaire. Several explained that they need to go to various sources to answer the questions and having to answer the questions online made it difficult to seek out these sources. While some of the responses to questions may be contained in online records, others need to be collected from various school staff, such as teachers, guidance counselors, and the school secretary. When looking at a paper questionnaire, the administrators are able to determine which questions could be asked of which school staff person and ask all the necessary questions of that person at one time; such a procedure is less feasible and efficient with an online questionnaire since questions are presented on many different screens. This makes the completion of the online SAQ inefficient and perhaps even more time-consuming than the paper questionnaire.

The respondents gave positive reviews to the survey navigation and ease-of-use when answering questions, and said that they are generally comfortable using an online format. The average time respondents reported spending on the online survey was 51 minutes.

In summary, most administrators did not strongly agree that having an online format would make completion of the SAQ any easier. While several did say that having an online survey might seem more appealing than a paper questionnaire, the complaints about completing this particular questionnaire online (e.g., the nature of the questions and the need to consult with others to complete it) seemed to override the appeal for this particular questionnaire being online.

A.2 Purposes and Uses of the Data

The ECLS-K:2011 will provide rich data sets that are generally designed to serve two purposes: descriptive and explanatory. It will provide descriptive data at a national level related to (1) children’s status at entry into kindergarten and at different points in children’s elementary school careers, (2) children’s transition into school and into the later elementary grade levels, and (3) children’s school progress through the fifth grade. Additionally, it will provide rich data that will enable researchers to test hypotheses about how a wide range of child, family, school, classroom, nonparental care, education provider, and community characteristics relate to experiences and success in school.

In addition to the descriptive objectives mentioned above, the data will describe the diversity of young children with respect to demographic characteristics such as race/ethnicity, language, and school readiness. Such information is critical for establishing policies that are sensitive to this diversity. The longitudinal nature of the study will enable researchers to study cognitive, socioemotional, and physical growth, as well as relate trajectories of growth and change to variation in home, school, and before- and after-school care setting experiences in the elementary grades. Summer learning or learning loss, which can have a considerable impact on children’s educational progress, can also be examined with data collected in the fall 2011 and fall 2012 data collections. Ultimately, the ECLS-K:2011 data set will be used by policymakers, educators, and researchers to consider the ways in which children are educated in our nation’s schools and to develop effective approaches to education. It will be particularly valuable to policymakers, as the ECLS-K:2011 is being launched a dozen years after the inception of the ECLS-K. Analyses of the two cohorts will provide valuable information about the influences of changing policy and demographic environments on children’s early learning and development.

A.2.1 Research Issues Addressed in the ECLS-K:2011

Today’s early education environment differs from that of the past in numerous ways. Examples of the many changes that have occurred within schools and within the larger society in recent years are presented in exhibit A-1 and include changes at the policy, state, school, family, and societal levels. ECLS-K and ECLS-B data have been used by numerous researchers to examine many of these topics. The widespread use of ECLS data is a testament to the importance of the ECLS program. At the same time, both prior studies leave gaps in the research questions we may answer with the data, which is perhaps inevitable because changes in policy, research, and society are often difficult to anticipate. The ECLS-K:2011 seeks to preserve the strengths of the earlier studies by retaining much of the same content, while incorporating appropriate modifications. This allows for the use of ECLS-K:2011 data to answer some of these recently-emerging questions, while at the same time allowing for the study of a new cohort of children growing up in new circumstances and the ability to make comparisons with the earlier cohorts. Below, we discuss some of the important developments that are particularly relevant to the design of the ECLS-K:2011.

A.2.1.1 Developments in Early Education Policy

A major change in early education occurred when the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) was reauthorized as the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) and signed into law in early 2002. ESEA 2002 set clear expectations for student achievement, mandated annual assessments of all children in grades 3 through 8 to measure progress toward state-defined goals, and had strong reporting requirements for schools, districts, and states. ESEA 2002 aims to narrow or eliminate achievement gaps in education and called for accountability and higher standards for achievement. ESEA 2002 is several years overdue for reauthorization, but debates continue over appropriate reforms. In 2010, President Barack Obama released his Blueprint for Reform for the reauthorization of ESEA, which is awaiting congressional action. In the meantime, The Secretary of Education and President Obama have granted some states flexibility in meeting some of the NCLB requirements in exchange for meaningful reform at the state and local levels.

Among the requirements for receiving a waiver from NCLB requirements are the state’s development of criteria for evaluating teacher and principal performance beyond a focus on single standardized test scores and the creation of systems for teacher and principal development. These criteria can include observation, peer review, and feedback from parents and students, as well as student growth rates, but must also set new performance targets for improving student achievement and closing achievement gaps. In addition, states must develop accountability systems to identify and reward high-performing schools and to identify and intervene in the lowest performing schools to help them improve student performance.

Exhibit A-1. Examples of important developments relevant to the ECLS-K:2011

Policy changes

– Passage of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) 2002

– President Obama’s 2010 Blueprint for Reform proposal for reauthorization of ESEA

– Recent U.S. Department of Education invitation to states to apply for flexibility in meeting specific ESEA requirements in exchange for meaningful reform at the state and local levels

– Race to the Top

– The Common Core State Standards Initiative

– The New Generation Science Standards

– E-GOV Act of 2002 promoting use of the web and web-based applications to provide access to and enhance delivery of government services

Economic challenges

– Global recession and financial crisis beginning 2007/2008

– American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009

– State and local budget constraints and cuts

– Sequestration of a portion of federal funds across all administrative departments in 2013

Changes in schools and challenges to schools

– Growth in school choice and increasing number of charter schools

– Increased use of technology and the Internet in schools

– Increased use of mobile devices and “bring your own device” policies

– New technologies allow different types of classroom interactions (e.g., remote personal response systems, social networking, digital textbooks)

– Blended learning where in-person instruction and technology-delivered information are combined

– Differentiated instruction

– Segmentation by subject in elementary school

– Value-added assessments

– Teacher salary and tenure reform, including incorporating measures of teacher effectiveness

– Training teachers to use technology effectively and to become online educators

– Growth of Hispanic, Asian, and multi-race child population

– Growth in English language learners (ELL) in schools, especially at young ages

– Use of data management systems to track and monitor student achievement and behavior and the use of data-driven decision making

– The increased use of “response to intervention” approaches to intervention in the general education setting and for the determination of eligibility for special education

– Increased focus on preventing problem behavior

Child health

– Epidemic of obesity and associated rise in diabetes

– Rise in incidence of:

• Allergies

• Asthma

• Autism

• Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder

– Decline in incidence of:

• Specific learning disabilities

Scientific developments

– Advances in neuroimaging techniques (e.g., fMRIs) that have led to advances in our understanding of the development of children’s learning, memory, attention, and language

– Advances in neurological research and emphasis on executive function

– Emerging research showing the trainability of cognitive processes (e.g., Rueda, et al., 2005)

– Recent developments in cognitive science and learning theory

Both ESEA 2002 and the Blueprint for Reform emphasize the importance of using highly qualified teachers in the classroom. However, the programs differ in their definitions of “highly qualified.” ESEA 2002 requires that all teachers of core subjects have a minimum of a bachelor’s degree, full state certification, and a demonstrated competence in each core academic subject they teach. The Blueprint for Reform calls for states to define standards for “effective teacher,” “effective principal,” “highly effective teacher,” and “highly effective principal.” States awarded flexibility waivers will set their own criteria for evaluating teachers and principals.

Several of the recent reform proposals reflect a movement from application of uniform proficiency goals to measurement of individual growth in students’ achievement. This shift would call for new types of assessments that are not just cross-sectional measures, but ones that can detect individual student growth over time.

The recent adoption of common core state standards in English language arts and mathematics across the country represents another significant change in the education policy environment that can be examined given the data that is collected by the ECLS-K:2011 study. The Common Core State Standards Initiative, launched in 2010 by state policy leaders in the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers, seeks to create common standards that align curricula, college and career readiness, and state tests to the highest standards around the country. Forty-five states have adopted the common core standards. Recent comparisons with the state standards being replaced indicate that the common core standards are more challenging than most individual state initiatives (Carmichael, Martino, Porter-Magee, and Wilson 2010). Beginning with the spring first-grade data collection, the ECLS-K:2011 included items about instruction of language arts and mathematics in the classroom-level teacher questionnaire to reflect the appropriate grade-level standards as described by the common core state standards.

In addition to changing policies and approaches to early education and research, the United States is still facing economic challenges that will affect the Federal budget in the coming years. The deep recession and the associated high unemployment rate and tightened state and local budgets have direct impacts on districts and schools. Reduced services and staff may well affect children’s experiences in school. Beginning with the spring first-grade data collection, the school administrator questionnaire included questions asking about actions that may have occurred as a result of changes in funding, such as staff additions or contractions in the past year, changes in staff burden and salaries, adjustments in class sizes, and increases in family poverty (that is, in the proportion of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch). These items were included because the current economic climate may also affect children’s home lives if the family experienced changes in their economic circumstances or if friends and family members did. Researchers have studied the effect of the recession on child well-being and found many adverse effects, including an increase in the number of households classified as “food insecure” (Sell et al., 2010). According to the “NSLP Fact Sheet” of the Food and Nutrition Service, USDA,⁸ the number of students enrolled in the National School Lunch Program, i.e., those receiving free or reduced-price lunch, continues to increase. For example, in 1990, over 24 million children participated in the program, while in 2011, that number was greater than 31.8 million children.

A.2.1.2 School Readiness

Education policymakers and researchers continue to debate the most appropriate ways to promote school readiness. Most experts agree that school readiness is a multifaceted phenomenon that encompasses several domains of child development. In addition to cognitive development and pre-academic skills (e.g., letter and number recognition, emerging literacy), school readiness is conceptualized as involving the whole child, including health and physical well-being, language acquisition, social and emotional development, and interest in and enthusiasm for learning. It is therefore important for the ECLS-K:2011, like the ECLS-K and the ECLS-B, to capture all of these domains to fully understand how children’s early learning and development are affected by shifts in policy and by changes in children’s lives.

One effect of ESEA 2002 is a change in curricular emphasis in the early grades. ESEA 2002 emphasizes evidence-based early literacy activities that stress the development of specific literacy skills. ESEA 2002 includes two initiatives, Reading First and Early Reading First, which seek to lay the foundation for future school success by stressing the following five skills to enable children to become proficient readers:

• Phonemic awareness: the ability to hear and identify sounds in spoken words;

• Phonics: the relationship between the letters of written language and the sounds of spoken language;

• Vocabulary: the words students must know to communicate effectively;

• Fluency in reading: the capacity to read text accurately and quickly; and

• Comprehension: the ability to understand and gain meaning from what is read.

ESEA 2002 and these reading programs view literacy as a learned skill that requires coherent skill-based instruction using scientifically supported curricula provided by highly qualified teachers. By ensuring that the ECLS-K:2011 assessments and teacher questionnaires measure these skills, the ECLS-K:2011 can be used to examine children’s emerging literacy and cognitive development since the passage of ESEA 2002. The focus of ESEA 2002 on early literacy skills has essentially shifted discussions of school readiness from the range of domains mentioned above to two: (1) language development and (2) cognition and general knowledge. It will be important to examine the trajectories of other important dimensions of school readiness, such as social competence, approaches to learning, and other indicators of socioemotional development, in light of this aforementioned shift.

A.2.1.3 Executive Functioning

Recent research in the cognitive and neurological sciences is providing important insights into developmental processes associated with school readiness. Of particular interest is research on the importance of executive functioning for learning and academic achievement (e.g., Blair and Razza, 2007; Posner and Rothbart, 2006). “Executive functioning” refers to a set of interdependent processes that work together to accomplish purposeful, goal-directed activities and include working memory, attention, inhibitory control, and other self-regulatory processes. Executive functioning processes work to regulate and orchestrate cognition, emotion, and behavior to help a child to learn in the classroom. For example, executive control, which is associated with the prefrontal cortex, involves the ability to allocate attention, to hold information in working memory, and to withhold an inappropriate response (Casey et al., 2000). Not only are these cognitive and behavioral processes predictive of reading and math achievement (Blair and Razza, 2007), but there is also emerging research that indicates that some of these cognitive processes are trainable (Rueda et al., 2005; Klingberg et al., 2005) and can be improved upon in regular public school classrooms without costly interventions (Diamond et al., 2007).

Many other cognitive processes are necessary for learning and achievement. For example, learning, whether it involves reading comprehension, solving applied mathematics problems, or something else, involves the interaction between working memory and long-term memory and the formation of linkages between the two. The ECLS-K:2011 will be strengthened by obtaining direct and indirect measures that capture specific learning issues such as attention problems, memory problems, inability to withhold inappropriate responses, and language issues. In particular, little attention has been paid to differences in these areas across racial/ethnic subgroups or between low-income and other children (Noble et al., 2005). The ECLS-K:2011 will provide information to allow for the investigation of such differences.

A.2.1.4 Demographic Changes

The United States is also experiencing demographic shifts in its population. Ours is becoming an increasingly diverse society (Frey, 2011). Recent analyses of decennial census data show that from 2000 to 2010, the growth in the nation’s child population was due primarily to increases in the Hispanic, Asian, and other groups who are not White, Black, or American Indian (Frey 2011). The demographic shift is especially evident in the school-aged population. In 2009, 21 percent of children ages 5 to 17 (or 11.2 million children) spoke a language other than English at home and 5 percent spoke English with difficulty. Of those speaking English with difficulty, 73 percent spoke Spanish, 13 percent spoke an Asian or Pacific Island language, 10 percent spoke an Indo-European language other than Spanish, and 4 percent spoke some other language at home (Aud et al., 2011).

Language is not the only challenge for many of these children, particularly those born outside the United States. Many children born outside of the U.S. who immigrate here, especially those with parents from Mexico and Central America, come from larger families, families where the parents have lower parental education, and families with lower family income than the native-born (Larsen, 2004). Also, families from other cultures may have different normative expectations for how they should interact with schools and teachers. The ECLS-K:2011 will enable researchers to examine how schools and teachers are meeting the needs of these students and their families and to measure the effectiveness of those efforts.

A.2.1.5 Hearing Impairments in the Early Elementary School Years

Hearing evaluations are being included in the ECLS-K:2011 because they have high public utility and impairments can affect children’s educational experiences and learning. Approximately 15 percent of U.S. children aged six to nineteen have a measurable hearing loss in one or both ears (Niskar et. al., 1998). Any degree of hearing loss can be educationally handicapping for children. Even children with mild to moderate hearing losses can miss up to 50 percent of classroom discussions. Unmanaged hearing loss in children can affect their speech and language development, academic capabilities and educational development, and self-image and social/emotional development (Cunningham, et al., 2003). The American Academy of Audiology recommends that all children be screened for hearing loss at least once during the preschool years. They also recommend that hearing loss be ruled out whenever a child is being considered for special education services (American Academy of Audiology, 1997). Inclusion of a hearing evaluation in the ECLS-K:2011 will provide researchers with a unique ability to look at associations between hearing loss and a host of educational experiences and outcomes in a large-scale nationally representative study, to examine the emergence of hearing difficulties across time, and to see whether and how the timing of the emergence of hearing difficulties may be related to both environmental factors and educational experiences and outcomes.

A.3 Use of Improved Information Technology

When feasible, available technology will be used to improve data quality and reduce respondent and school burden. The ECLS-K:2011 parent interviews and child assessments will be conducted using computer-assisted interviewing (CAI). Using CAI will increase data collection efficiency by permitting preloads of available data about the sampled schools and children, on-line editing of information as it is entered (e.g., correcting data entry errors caught through range and logic checks or correction of information provided in a previous round of data collection), and routing of respondents through complex question branching—all of which also reduce respondent burden by producing faster interviews and reducing the need to recontact respondents to obtain missing information (which would occur, for example, if a field interviewer not using CAI does not follow a skip pattern correctly and items that should be asked are not). Parent interviews are primarily conducted by telephone; however, field interviewers will conduct interviews with parents without telephones or who are difficult to reach by making in-person visits to complete interviews. These in-person interviews will also be conducted using CAI on laptop computers. The CAI system has important features that will improve the quality of the data and reduce the burden on respondents, as follows:

• Initial Contact: The CAI system will guide the ECLS-K:2011 field interviewer in making contact with the parent at the correct phone number or address and with the child at the school and will include prompts to help the interviewer identify the correct respondent.

• Routing the Direct Child Assessment: The CAI system will be programmed so the initial routing tests at the beginning of the reading, mathematics, and science cognitive assessment subtests will be scored by the computer and the appropriate second-stage tests corresponding to the child’s ability level will be administered. The benefits of such a two-stage assessment are increased adaptiveness, reduced burden for the child, and increased precision of measurement because the assessors do not need to score the routing test and select the appropriate second-stage test themselves. In addition, there typically are some skip rules programmed into the CAI for reading and math that will skip children to a set of questions on a different topic or the next domain if they are struggling and have responded to several questions incorrectly. For the executive function numbers reversed task, the CAI system accurately determines where the task ends depending on the child’s performance. As mentioned above, the computerized version of the executive function Dimensional Change Card Sort (DCCS) task allows the assessment to accurately capture response time, which becomes more important to capture as children get older.

• Skip Patterns: The CAI system automatically guides interviewers through the complex skip patterns in the parent interviews, thereby reducing respondent burden, reducing potential for interviewer error, and shortening the interview administration time. The respondent will not be asked inapplicable questions and the interviewers do not need to spend time determining which questions to ask.

• Copying Responses: The CAI system will be programmed to copy responses from one item to another and from one round to another to prevent unnecessary repetition of questions and to aid in respondents’ recall. For example, information that is provided by the respondent early in the interview may be useful later in the interview; such information can be displayed on the screen or used as a wording fill for relevant questions to assist the respondent. Additionally, information from the previous waves of data collection can be copied to the current wave’s interview and be verified by the respondent, eliminating the need to collect the data again.

• Time Intervals: The CAI system also provides automated time and date prompts that are very useful in longitudinal studies to assist respondents in remembering specific time periods. The interview can also provide the specific timeframe for the interval between the previous and the current wave of data collection, to help respondents provide information without repeating information they had given at the previous data collection period.

• Receipt Control: The CAI system will provide for automatic updates to the interview status of study participants and will be used to produce status reports that allow timely and ongoing monitoring of the survey’s progress.

The use of a CAI system for the ECLS-K:2011 is critical because of the intricate and sometimes difficult skip patterns that are part of complex survey instruments and because of the longitudinal nature of the data collection in which the same respondent might be interviewed at multiple time points. Without CAI, the ECLS-K:2011 instruments would be difficult to administer over repeated measurement periods, and respondent burden would be increased.

The child questionnaire will be administered using audio computer-assisted self-interview (audio-CASI) technology. With this format, the items and response options are presented to the child on a touchscreen and the child enters his or her own responses by touching the screen. The responses are then saved on the laptop and will be transmitted along with the data from the assessments. There are several advantages to using an audio-CASI version of the child questionnaire. This format provides more privacy to children as they answer questions that may be sensitive for them, and administration is more standardized because all children hear the items read to them in exactly the same way with the recording. Also, electronic capture of responses reduces processing time and the potential for data entry error.

A computer-based data management system will be used to manage the sample. The sample management system uses encrypted data transmission and networking technology to maintain timely information on respondents in the sample, including contact, tracking, and case completion data. This system is particularly important as children move from one school to another over the course of the ECLS-K:2011 study. The use of technology for sample management will maximize tracking efforts, which should have a positive effect on the study’s ability to locate movers and achieve acceptable response rates.

New to the third-grade round of data collection is the ECLS-K:2011 Message Center, a secure website accessed with a username and password that has been assigned to specific users, namely field staff (field managers, school recruiters, and team leaders) and participating school coordinators. The list of children enrolled in each school who are participating in the study will be sent to the school coordinator from the data collection contractor’s home office as an attachment to a secure message. This method will not only make it more convenient for school coordinators to access the list of participating children, but will also greatly enhance the security of this list. Because of the nature of the system, the list cannot be printed or forwarded to other school staff. If the school coordinator is amenable, the message system can also be used for other types of sensitive communication between the school coordinator and the field staff (for example, when informing the field staff that a child has moved to a new school).

A.4 Efforts to Identify Duplication

The ECLS-K:2011 will not be duplicative of other studies. The ECLS-K is the only other study to collect as detailed and extensive information as the ECLS-K:2011 for a cohort of young children and to follow them throughout elementary school. The ECLS-K:2011 extends the information obtained by the ECLS-K to a new cohort, opens up possibilities to investigate new research questions, and allows important comparisons to be made between two kindergarten cohorts attending school a dozen years apart. In addition, the ECLS-K:2011 has collected data during the children’s second-grade year and plans to collect information during their fourth-grade year, which the ECLS-K did not.

A literature search was conducted to identify and review research studies with the same study purpose and goals as those proposed for the ECLS-K:2011. To be included in the search the research had to be (1) a survey-based study of a population with a sample of 1,000 or more, (2) longitudinal in design, and (3) focused on children’s cognitive development in the elementary, middle, and/or secondary grades. Although similar studies were found, they were generally confined to limited geographic areas (e.g., Baltimore, Maryland; Greensboro, North Carolina) or, in the case of studies conducted on the national level (e.g., Prospects, Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth [NLSY Child Supplement]), were not based on probability samples of kindergartners. For example, Prospects began with first graders and targeted Title 1 recipients. NLSY79’s Child Supplement targeted the children of female sample members of a household-based 1979 sample of 14- to 21-year-olds. The Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES), which is similar to the ECLS-K:2011 in terms of the content and components included, has followed several cohorts of children from preschool through early elementary school. However, FACES has not followed the progress of children in school beyond kindergarten or first grade, and the samples are limited to children served by Head Start. Studies such as the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88) and Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS:2002) began with students in the middle and high school grades. Another major finding of the literature review was that most studies used group-administered achievement tests, which, for young children, can be less reliable than individually administered assessments. Individually administered assessments, like those used in the ECLS-K:2011, allow the assessor to establish rapport and offer motivation and supportive conditions so that each child performs to the best of his or her ability.

A.5 Method Used to Minimize Burden on Small Businesses

Private, not-for-profit, and proprietary elementary schools have been drawn into the sample. These proprietary and nonprofit schools will benefit from the study’s burden-reducing strategies (e.g., instruction packets for participants, toll-free help lines, and prepaid business return envelopes), which were designed for all types of schools.

A.6 Frequency of Data Collection

This submission describes and requests approval for the spring third-grade data collection, which will occur in the spring of 2014. The first data collection for the study began in the fall of 2010, and additional data collections have occurred in spring 2011, fall 2011, spring 2012, fall 2012, and spring 2013. One of the main goals of the ECLS-K:2011 is to measure children’s cognitive, socioemotional, and physical growth and development, as well as changes in the contextual characteristics (i.e., family, classroom, school, and community factors) that can affect growth. The spring third-grade data collection is one of the periodic follow-ups that will collect information to be compared to baseline (kindergarten) information, thereby allowing for analyses of change for children and their environments.

After this third-grade year, the study design calls for follow-up collections in the springs of the fourth- and fifth-grade years. This frequency of data collection is linked to the rate of change that is expected for children of this age and the desire to capture information about children as critical events and transitions are occurring, rather than measuring these events retrospectively. Without data collection follow-ups, the study of children’s cognitive, socioemotional, and physical development is hindered. Assuming the third-grade collection is as successful as the previous collections have been to date, future clearance requests will be submitted for the follow-up collections in later grades.

A.7 Special Circumstances of Data Collection

No special circumstances for this information collection are anticipated.

A.8 Consultants Outside the Agency

NCES consulted with a range of outside agencies over the life of the ECLS‑K, and such input also has informed the ECLS-K:2011 study design and instrumentation, since they draw heavily from the ECLS-K. During the early development of the ECLS-K, project staff met with representatives from a wide range of federal agencies with an interest in the care and well-being of children (see Table A-1). The goal of this activity was to identify policy and research issues and data needs. Similarly, consultation with federal agencies has occurred and continues for the ECLS-K:2011. Several of the early consultations with government agencies have resulted in interagency agreements funding questions, sections of or full study instruments, and components of the child assessments (specifically, the hearing evaluations) to the study instruments.

Project staff has also consulted several other organizations (see Table A-2) that have an interest in the care, well-being, and education of young children. The goal of this activity was to obtain additional perspectives on policy and research issues and data needs. While most of this consultation occurred during the design and conduct of the ECLS-K, there has be some outside consultation during the design of the ECLS-K:2011.

Similar to its predecessor, the ECLS-K:2011 represents a collaborative effort by education and health and human services agencies. NCES supports the development of the core design of the ECLS-K:2011. Partner agencies supporting the inclusion of the supplemental questions or sections of the study instruments that enrich the ECLS-K:2011 by providing expert input or funding (or both) have included the Economic Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the National Center for Special Education Research in the Institute of Education Sciences of the U.S. Department of Education, the Administration for Children and Families in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the National Institute of Deafness and Other Communication Disorders and the National Eye Institute, both at the National Institutes of Health in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The National Institute of Deafness and Other Communication Disorders is sponsoring the hearing evaluation data collection being conducted as part of the third-grade data collection. Table A-1 lists the Federal agency consultants for the ECLS-K and ECLS-K:2011 and Table A-2 lists other organization consultants for the ECLS-K.

In preparation for the ECLS-K:2011 collections, the data collection contractor assembled expert panels (Technical Review Panel (TRP) and Content Review Panels (CRP)) to review and comment on issues related to the development of the study and survey instruments. The members of the panels included experts in research, policy making, and practice in the fields of early childhood education and development, elementary education, health, research methodology, special populations, and assessment.

There have been two meetings of the TRP panels. The first was a 2-day meeting held in November 2008. The meeting focused on major design and content issues, such as study periodicity, the benefits of including an assessment of science in kindergarten, the assessment of executive functioning, and the content of a Spanish language assessment for native Spanish speakers who are English language learners. The TRP members also provided suggestions for specific questionnaire items to be included in the instruments in the full-scale national data collection. Table A-3 lists the ECLS-K:2011 TRP members present at the first meeting.

The second TRP meeting was a 2-day meeting held in March 2011. The meeting focused on content for the first- and second-grade non-assessment instruments, including suggestions for specific questionnaire items to be included in the instruments in the second-grade data collection. Table A-4 lists the ECLS-K:2011 TRP members present at the second meeting.

Table A-1. Federal agency consultants for ECLS-K and ECLS-K:2011

Diane Schilder1 Government Accounting Office Cindy Prince,1 Emily Wurtz1 National Education Goals Panel Andy Hartman1 National Institute for Literacy Mary Queitzsch,1 Larry Suter1 National Science Foundation Michael Ruffner,1 Bayla White,1 Brian Harris-Kojetin1 Office of Management and the Budget John Endahl,1 Jeff Wilde,1 Joanne Guthrie, Victor Oliviera1 U.S. Department of Agriculture Don Hernandez1 U.S. Department of Commerce Bureau of the Census Marriage and Family Statistics Tim D’Emillio U.S. Department of Education, OELA Naomi Karp,1 Dave Malouf,1 Ivor Pritchard,1 Marsha Silverberg1 U.S. Department of Education, IES Pia Divine,1 Esther Kresh,1 Ivelisse Martinez-Beck, Ann Rivera U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children, Youth, and Families Gerry Hendershot,1 John Kiley,1 Michael Kogan, 1 Mitchell Loeb, Patricia Pastor U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services NCHS Howard Hoffman National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders NICHD, U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services Mary Frances Cotch National Eye Institute NICHD, U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services Christa Themann, William Murphy National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health Centers for Disease Control Michael Planty, Jenna Truman Bureau of Justice Statistics U.S. Department of Justice

Tom Bradshaw,1 Doug Herbert1 National Endowment for the Arts Jeffrey Thomas1 National Endowment for the Humanities Patricia McKee U.S. Department of Education OESE Compensatory Education Programs Cathie L. Martin1 U.S. Department of Education, OIE Scott Brown,1 Louis Danielson,1 Glinda Hill,1 Lisa Holden-Pitt,1 Kristen Lauer,1 Marlene Simon-Burroughs,1 Larry Wexler U.S. Department of Education, OSEP Jon Jacobson U.S. Department of Education, NCEE Lisa A. Gorove1 U.S. Department of Education OUS, Budget Service, ESVA Elois Scott1 U.S. Department of Education OUS, PES, ESED Richard Dean1 U.S. Department of Education OVAE, Adult Literacy Jacquelyn Buckley U.S. Department of Education IES, NCSER Jeff Evans,1 Sarah Friedman,1 Christine Bachrach,1 Peggy McCardle1 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services NICHD, Center for Population Research Martha Moorehouse,1 Anne Wolf1 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Assistant Secretary for Planning & Evaluation, Children and Youth Policy Katrina Baum1 Bureau of Justice Statistics Department of Justice Meredith A. Miceli U.S. Department of Education Office of Special Education Programs

¹ Consultant for the ECLS-K only. Affiliation listed is the affiliation at the time input on the study was provided.

Table A-2. Other organization consultants for ECLS-K and ECLS-K:2011¹

Lynson Bobo Project Associate Resource Center on Educational Equity Council of Chief State School Officers Susan Bredekamp, Barbara Willer National Association for the Education of Young Children Jane Clarenbach National Association for Gifted Children Mary Jo Lynch American Library Association Office of Research and Statistics

Keith W. Mielkek Children’s Television Workshop June Million, Sally McConnell, Louanne Wheeler National Association of Elementary School Principals Evelyn Moore, Erica Tollett National Black Child Development Institute Thomas Schultz Director, Center for Education Services for Young Learners National Association of State Boards of Education Larry Suter Independent Education Consultant, Formerly of NSF and NCES

¹ Affiliation listed is the affiliation at the time input on the study was provided.

NOTE: Italicized text used for consultation that occurred for the ECLS-K:2011. All other consultations occurred for the ECLS-K.

Table A-3. ECLS-K:2011 First TRP meeting attendee list (November 2008)¹

Karl Alexander Department of Sociology Johns Hopkins University Jim Bauman Center for Applied Linguistics Washington, DC Maureen Black Growth and Nutrition Department University of Maryland Medical Center Joanne Carlisle School of Education University of Michigan Janet Fischel State University of New York at Stony Brook & University Medical Center

Fred Morrison Department of Psychology University of Michigan Charlotte Patterson Department of Psychology University of Virginia Robert Pianta The Center for Advanced Teaching and Learning University of Virginia Kit Viator Massachusetts Department of Education

¹ Affiliation listed is the affiliation at the time input on the study was provided.

Table A-4. ECLS-K:2011 Second TRP meeting attendee list (March 2011)¹

Karl Alexander Department of Sociology Johns Hopkins University Jim Bauman Center for Applied Linguistics Washington, DC Joanne Carlisle School of Education University of Michigan Robert Crosnoe Department of Sociology University of Texas at Austin

David Dickinson Department of Teaching and Learning Vanderbilt University Rolf Grafwallner Maryland Public Schools Greg Roberts The Meadows Center for Preventing Educational Risk University of Texas at Austin Deborah Stipek School of Education Stanford University

¹ Affiliation listed is the affiliation at the time input on the study was provided.

To date, ten meetings of the CRP panels have been held: reading (May 2009), mathematics (May 2009), science (May 2009), English language learners (August 2009), executive function (November 2009; March 2011, December 2012), socioemotional development (March 2011; October 2012), and teacher practices (March 2011). For each of these specific content areas, panel members provided critical review of the instruments for inclusion in the national data collections. The meetings focused on the appropriateness and adequacy of specific instruments by considering features such as domain coverage, age appropriateness, and technical quality. Table A-5 lists the ECLS-K:2011 CRP members.

Table A-5. ECLS-K:2011 CRP member list, by panel¹

Reading Panel
Susan Conrad Independent consultant, assessment development Gloria Johnston Education National University	Alba Ortiz University of Texas at Austin Barbara Wasik Temple University
Mathematics Panel
Doug Clements State University of New York, Buffalo Donna Compano Independent consultant, assessment development, math facilitator, elementary teacher	Lizanne DeStefano University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Leah Parker Journeys Academy, Gifted Education Specialist
Science Panel
Christie Bean JJ Ciavarra Elementary School Kathy DiRanna University of California - Irvine Angela Eckhoff Clemson University	Christine Y. O’Sullivan Science Consultant Michael Padilla Clemson University

¹ Affiliation listed is the affiliation at the time input on the study was provided.

Table A-5. ECLS-K:2011 CRP member list, by panel¹ (continued)

English Language Learners Panel
Jamal Abedi University of California at Davis Catherine Crowley Teachers College	Eugene E. García Arizona State University Vera Gutierrez-Clellen San Diego State University
Executive Function Panel
Clancy Blair New York University Adele Diamond (March 2011 meeting only) University of British Columbia Lisa Jacobson (December 2012 meeting only) Kennedy Krieger Institute	Megan McClelland Oregon State University Philip Zelazo University of Minnesota
Socioemotional Development Panel
Pamela Cole (March 2011 meeting only) The Pennsylvania State University Rick Fabes Arizona State University Karen Bierman (October 2012 meeting only) The Pennsylvania State University Allan Wigfield (October 2012 meeting only) University of Maryland	Ross Thompson (March 2011 meeting only) University of California, Davis Carlos Valiente (March 2011 meeting only) Arizona State University Dorothy Espelage (October 2012 meeting only) University of Illinois
Teacher Practices Panel
Stephanie Al Otaiba Florida State University Hilda Borko Stanford University	Carol Connor Florida State University Barbara Wasik University of North Carolina

¹ Affiliation listed is the affiliation at the time input on the study was provided.

A.9 Provision of Payments or Gifts to Respondents

Obtaining high response rates is critical for all longitudinal studies. At the start of a longitudinal data collection, it is essential to establish the good will of respondents and to demonstrate that we value their participation in the study. Good will can be established by using well-designed respondent materials that inform respondents about the goals of the study and their role in it, the field staff establishing a rapport with the respondents, professionalism among the field staff, and a small token incentive. The incentive plan for the ECLS-K:2011 is similar to the approach approved by OMB for use in ECLS-K and in the kindergarten, first-grade, and second-grade collections of the ECLS-K:2011, though we are proposing a few changes, including adding small tokens of appreciation for parents and children and a somewhat higher incentive for teachers than has been used in the prior rounds of the ECLS-K:2011. The plan is designed to help respondents to recognize the merits of the study and thereby encourage high response rates.

As described below, we propose to provide monetary incentives to school staff, as has been done in prior rounds of data collection for the ECLS-K:2011. Parents and children will not receive any significant incentive, monetary or otherwise. As in the past, children will be given ECLS-K:2011 pencils with the sun logo that they use for the math portion of the assessment. This round, we are proposing to also give children a small token of appreciation such as a carabineer, lanyard, or refrigerator magnet with the sun logo. The token of appreciation will be mailed to the child’s home, along with the letter for parents about the upcoming data collection. A set of ECLS-K:2011 post-it notes with the sun logo (included in Appendix H) will also be sent with the parent letter. The study is now entering its fourth year, and both parents and children have been asked to participate several times, some as many as six times. These tokens of appreciation are being sent as a small gesture in an effort to maintain enthusiasm for and a positive attitude about the study. Though the token of appreciation is for children, we anticipate that parents will react positively to seeing their children receive something from the study. The parent response rates have consistently been lower than desired (between 67 percent and about 75 percent), so another goal of providing these small tokens of appreciation is to maintain the participation of parents who have participated consistently in the past and encourage the participation of those who have not.

A.9.1 School Incentive

High levels of school participation are integral to the success of the study. Without a school’s cooperation, there can be no school, teacher, or child data collection activity at that facility. NCES recognizes that administrators will assess the study’s burden level before agreeing to participate. To offset the perceived burden, NCES intends to continue its use of strategies that have worked successfully in the past for the ECLS-K:2011, the ECLS-K, and other major NCES studies (High School and Beyond, the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988, and the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002). It is important to provide schools with an incentive because the study asks a lot of them, including allowing field staff to be in their schools for up to 3 days, providing a contact person and space for the children to be assessed, removing children from their classes while they are assessed, and obtaining information about the school, the teachers, and the children. Given the many demands and outside pressures that schools face, it is essential that they see that we understand the burden we are placing on them and that we value their participation. As was done for the other ECLS-K:2011 data collections, we propose to remunerate schools $200 per school. An honorarium check in the amount of $200 will be mailed to each school at the end of the spring third-grade data collection along with a thank you note thanking the school for its participation.⁹

A.9.2 School Administrator

To build response rates for the school administrator questionnaire, we propose to remunerate school administrators. In the ECLS-K, when no incentive was provided for administrators until the third-grade round of data collection, the field period had to be extended (for both kindergarten and first grade) to obtain response rates for the school administrator questionnaire that were closer to the desired rate of 85 percent or higher. Providing school administrators with an incentive will reduce the potential for needing to extend the field period and help avoid delays in data delivery. We will offer school administrators a $25 incentive in the spring third-grade collection, the same amount that was given to school administrators during the spring kindergarten, first-, and second-grade rounds of the ECLS-K:2011; the incentive will be attached to the questionnaire given to the school administrator to complete. In the spring first-grade round of the ECLS-K:2011, we offered school administrators a $25 incentive and a completion rate of 89 percent was achieved for the school administrator questionnaire.¹⁰

A.9.3 Teachers

In the base-year, first-, and second-grade collections of the ECLS-K:2011, teachers received $7 per child-level questionnaire because they were asked to provide a significant amount of information about each study child based on their observations of these students. A check for the incentive was attached to the package of instruments the teacher received each fall and spring. For the spring third-grade collection of the ECLS-K:2011, we propose changing to the incentive structure to the model that was used in later rounds of the ECLS-K. Classroom and special education teachers will still be offered $7 per child-level questionnaire, but an additional $20 associated with the teacher-/classroom-level questionnaires will also be provided.

A change in incentive structure was also made in the ECLS-K in later-round data collections. Teachers participating in the ECLS-K received $5 per sampled child in their classrooms during the kindergarten data collection rounds. Complaints about this amount to field staff prompted an incentive increase to $7 per child for third grade. In third grade, teachers completed child-level questionnaires for 63 percent of the study children. This low response rate prompted a second revision to the teacher incentive plan for the fifth-grade data collection, in which an additional $20 was given to teachers with the packet of questionnaires, in addition to the $7 per completed child-level questionnaire. Teachers responded positively to this method, as evidenced by their completing questionnaires on time, resulting in high response rates. In fifth grade, teachers completed child-level questionnaires for 93 percent of the study children.

The ECLS-K:2011 is having experiences similar to those that prompted changes to the teacher incentive plan in the ECLS-K, particularly in the spring second-grade round when the number of significant complaints from our respondents was higher than in the past. Field staff collecting hard-copy questionnaires from school staff have reported strong dissatisfaction among teachers, explaining that these teachers feel that the current incentive amount is inadequate, even “insulting” in the words of one teacher, given what is asked of the teachers. Another teacher stated, “The pay was not worth the time spent.” Project field staff were told by a different teacher, “The check is a nice perk but not much of an incentive for the staff. Dropping out of the study is being considered by some teachers unless the needed information can be shortened or the compensation increased.” Other teachers reported that after completing the child-level questionnaires, they did not then want to complete a questionnaire on their own background without additional remuneration.

While the addition of a $20 incentive for the teacher-level questionnaire did not occur until the fifth-grade data collection in the ECLS-K, we propose instituting it for the third-grade round of the ECLS-K:2011 for several reasons. NCES strives to achieve an 85 percent response rate and it would be better to change the incentive structure before the rates get as low as they did in the ECLS-K third-grade data collection. Teachers provide critical information on the child’s experience in the classroom. Without the teachers’ cooperation, our understanding of the child’s school experience is incomplete. Also, the issue of mandatory ESEA testing will be a concern to teachers as the children move to third grade in the ECLS-K:2011. The demands of required testing crowd out non-instructional time for voluntary studies like ECLS-K:2011, so teachers may be less likely to cooperate. This was not a concern in the ECLS-K because there was no mandatory testing at the national level in the spring of 2002. We expect that given the current economic state of the country and increasing demands on teachers as the cohort moves to the third grade, the proposed honorarium will be an even stronger incentive for elementary school teachers now than it was in the ECLS-K. Lastly, the dispersion of the sample and the effect that has on average remuneration was not considered thoroughly before the third-ground of the ECLS-K. In the earlier rounds of data collection, teachers typically teach clusters of sampled children, so their total incentive (with $7 per child-level questionnaire) is actually fairly robust. In addition, in kindergarten, there were two rounds of data collection, so teachers received two incentive payments during the year. In the later grades, when the children become more dispersed across classrooms and schools, the teacher incentive is lower for the average teacher, with many teachers receiving only $7 because there is only one study child in the school.

A recent article updates previous reviews of research on the use of survey incentives (Singer and Ye 2013). The authors systematically reviewed articles appearing since 2002 in major journals, supplemented by searches of the Proceedings of the American Statistical Association’s Section on Survey Methodology. Among the conclusions they draw are that “Incentives increase response rates to surveys in all modes, including the Web, and in cross-sectional and panel studies” and “Monetary incentives increase response rates more than gifts, and prepaid incentives increase them more than promised incentives….” Given the effectiveness of the change in the teacher incentive plan in our past experience with the ECLS-K, and the fact that keeping the current incentive structure actually represents a decrease in incentive for most teachers, we propose using the ECLS-K teacher incentive plan for third-grade teachers in the ECLS-K:2011 to improve data quality and coverage.

Teachers will be asked to complete self-administered questionnaires about their background, curriculum, instructional practices, and their views about teaching and their school environment (TQA and TQS). We expect the completion of these two questionnaires to take about 30 minutes total for both. In addition, they will be asked to complete a 20-minute child-level questionnaire (TQC) for each child in their classroom who participates in the study. Based on what occurred in the ECLS-K, we expect that general classroom teachers will have on average two sampled children in their third-grade classrooms, resulting in a total remuneration of $34. The estimate for special education teachers is the same. A check for the incentive will be attached to the package of instruments each teacher receives.

In light of our experience with the ECLS-K and other school-based longitudinal studies with high institutional and respondent burden, NCES believes that teacher remuneration is a necessary component of a successful ECLS-K:2011 data collection.

A.9.4 School Coordinators

School coordinators act as the study liaison between study staff and their school and, as such, they play a very important role in the ECLS-K:2011.¹¹ They communicate necessary information to parents, notify teachers and encourage their participation, arrange the assessment logistics (e.g., space to conduct the assessments), and collect hard-copy teacher and school administrator questionnaires. For this reason, school coordinators will be offered a $25 incentive for providing assistance to the study in the spring third-grade data collection.¹² The $25 checks will be attached to the packets mailed to the coordinators at the start of data collection. The study offered the same incentive to the school coordinators during the ECLS-K:2011 kindergarten, first-, and second-grade data collections.

A.10 Assurance of Confidentiality

The ECLS-K:2011 plan for protecting confidentiality of the project participants conforms with the following federal regulations and policies: the Privacy Act of 1974 (5 U.S.C. 552a), Privacy Act Regulations (34 CFR Part 5b), the Education Sciences Reform Act of 2002 (20 U.S. Code Section 9573), the Computer Security Act of 1987, the NCES Restricted-Use Data Procedures Manual, and the NCES Standards and Policies.

All adult respondents who are participating in research under this clearance are informed that the information they provide will be protected from disclosure except as required by law (20 U.S. Code Section 9573) and that their participation is voluntary. All adult respondents receive an introductory letter that explains NCES’s and the contractor’s adherence to policies on disclosure.¹³ Also, this information appears on the cover of each of the study self-administered questionnaires. This information was provided to parents as the guardians for their children when their cooperation was sought during the base year of the study.

Since early spring 2010 (when preparations for the kindergarten data collections began), information about the protection of data from disclosure has been conveyed to state, district, and other school officials at the time their cooperation for the study was sought. As sampled children move to new schools, this information will be provided to the states and districts in which those schools are located, if necessary (i.e., if there are no participating schools in those states and districts already). New schools in the study will receive the letter developed for schools to which sampled children transfer that can be found in Appendix H of this clearance request, as well as the study brochure that was approved in May 2010 (see Appendix H of that package).

Respondent letters to parents summarize the data protection assurances; namely, that data will be combined to produce statistical reports, that no data will be published that link the respondent to his/her responses; that participation is voluntary; and that there is federal statute that protects the data from disclosure except as required by law (20 U.S. Code Section 9573).

All contractor staff members working on the ECLS-K:2011 project or having access to the data (including monitoring of interviews and assessments) are required to sign an NCES Affidavit of Nondisclosure and a Confidentiality Pledge. They also are required to complete mandatory training on data confidentiality and the safe handling of data. The contractor will keep the original notarized affidavits on file and submit PDF copies of all affidavits to NCES quarterly. In addition, contractor staff will complete background screening in compliance with ACS Directive (OM:5-101).

During the course of data collection, interviewers will be equipped with laptop computers, which store any necessary preloaded data, as well as the information collected on a given day during the data collection round. The interviewers will be instructed to keep the computers and any hard-copy case materials in a secure place in their homes when they are not being used. When the interviewer is in the field collecting interview or assessment data, he or she is instructed to keep all materials and the computer in his/her possession at all times. When driving a car to or from his/her appointments, the computer and all materials will be locked out of sight, so as not to provide an inviting opportunity for burglary. The interviewers will be instructed to transmit the electronic data for a case to a central database on the same day the case is completed. Data transmitted electronically will be encrypted during transmission.

The laptop configuration is designed with security and confidentiality considerations in mind. In order to access any of the applications, the interviewer must enter a project-specific password and an interviewer identification code, both of which are checked against encrypted versions of the same data; if the password or interviewer identification code is entered incorrectly repeatedly, the interviewer is “locked out” of the application. All data files will be encrypted on the computer hard disk.

In the event of a hardware failure in the field, the home office will swap the interviewer’s laptop for a new one. The contractor will maintain a supply of “hot spares,” i.e., laptop computers loaded with all necessary ECLS-K:2011 software, which require only the specific interviewer’s identification code and assignment before being sent out.

All mailing of respondent materials, laptops, and hard-copy case materials used by assessors to manage their workload will be done using Federal Express, which has a sophisticated tracking system designed to locate any misdirected packages. All packages will require the recipient’s signature for delivery. To the extent practical, the study name and logo will not be included on hard copy materials used by field staff to record school or respondent information. In the event of a loss of hard copy materials, this procedure would make it more difficult for someone who finds the materials to associate a school or respondent with the study. In addition, beginning in the third-grade data collection round, a secure message system will be used to share materials containing sensitive information (e.g., children’s names) between the field staff and school staff. In previous rounds of the ECLS-K:2011 the list of participating children was sent separately from all other study materials via Federal Express and contained no study identifying information. With the secure message system, this list of participating children will be shared electronically, rather than in hard copy. The system does not allow for the list to be printed or forwarded to other staff, enhancing the confidentiality of the materials.

Finally, all computer assisted interviewing (CAI) applications will have an audit trail of the case data on the hard disk, so that if the main data files are corrupted, the data can be reconstructed from the audit trails.

After data collection, all personally identifiable information will be stored on a secure server and password protected with access limited to authorized project staff. Personally identifiable data will also be protected through the coding of responses so that no one individual respondent can be identified (specifically or by deduction) through reported variables in the public access data files. NCES will monitor the conduct of the contractor to ensure that the confidentiality of the data is not breached.

Exhibit A-2. Confidentiality Pledge

EMPLOYEE OR CONTRACTOR’S ASSURANCE OF CONFIDENTIALITY OF SURVEY DATA

Statement of Policy

{Contractor} is firmly committed to the principle that the confidentiality of individual data obtained through {Contractor} surveys must be protected. This principle holds whether or not any specific guarantee of confidentiality was given at time of interview (or self-response), or whether or not there are specific contractual obligations to the client. When guarantees have been given or contractual obligations regarding confidentiality have been entered into, they may impose additional requirements which are to be adhered to strictly.

Procedures for Maintaining Confidentiality

1. All {Contractor} employees and field workers shall sign this assurance of confidentiality. This assurance may be superseded by another assurance for a particular project.

2. Field workers shall keep completely confidential the names of respondents, all information or opinions collected in the course of interviews, and any information about respondents learned incidentally during field work. Field workers shall exercise reasonable caution to prevent access by others to survey data in their possession.

3. Unless specifically instructed otherwise for a particular project, an employee or field worker, upon encountering a respondent or information pertaining to a respondent that s/he knows personally, shall immediately terminate the activity and contact her/his supervisor for instructions.

4. Survey data containing personal identifiers in {Contractor} offices shall be kept in a locked container or a locked room when not being used each working day in routine survey activities. Reasonable caution shall be exercised in limiting access to survey data to only those persons who are working on the specific project and who have been instructed in the applicable confidentiality requirements for that project.

Where survey data have been determined to be particularly sensitive by the Corporate Officer in charge of the project or the President of {Contractor}, such survey data shall be kept in locked containers or in a locked room except when actually being used and attended by a staff member who has signed this pledge.

5. Ordinarily, serial numbers shall be assigned to respondents prior to creating a machine-processible record and identifiers such as name, address, and Social Security number shall not, ordinarily, be a part of the machine record. When identifiers are part of the machine data record, {Contractor’s Manager of Data Processing} shall be responsible for determining adequate confidentiality measures in consultation with the project director. When a separate file is set up containing identifiers or linkage information which could be used to identify data records, this separate file shall be kept locked up when not actually being used each day in routine survey activities.

6. When records with identifiers are to be transmitted to another party, such as for keypunching or key taping, the other party shall be informed of these procedures and shall sign an Assurance of Confidentiality form.

7 . Each project director shall be responsible for ensuring that all personnel and contractors involved in handling survey data on a project are instructed in these procedures throughout the period of survey performance. When there are specific contractual obligations to the client regarding confidentiality, the project director shall develop additional procedures to comply with these obligations and shall instruct field staff, clerical staff, consultants, and any other persons who work on the project in these additional procedures. At the end of the period of survey performance, the project director shall arrange for proper storage or disposition of survey data including any particular contractual requirements for storage or disposition. When required to turn over survey data to our clients, we must provide proper safeguards to ensure confidentiality up to the time of delivery.

8. Project directors shall ensure that survey practices adhere to the provisions of the U.S. Privacy Act of 1974, and any additional relevant laws that are specified in the contract, with regard to surveys of individuals for the Federal Government. Project directors must ensure that procedures are established in each survey to inform each respondent of the authority for the survey, the purpose and use of the survey, the voluntary nature of the survey (where applicable), and the effects on the respondents, if any, of not responding.

PLEDGE

I hereby certify that I have carefully read and will cooperate fully with the above procedures. I will keep completely confidential all information arising from surveys concerning individual respondents to which I gain access. I will not discuss, disclose, disseminate, or provide access to survey data and identifiers except as authorized by {Contractor}. In addition, I will comply with any additional procedures established by {Contractor} for a particular contract. I will devote my best efforts to ensure that there is compliance with the required procedures by personnel whom I supervise. I understand that violation of this pledge is sufficient grounds for disciplinary action, including dismissal. I also understand that violation of the privacy rights of individuals through such unauthorized discussion, disclosure, dissemination, or access may make me subject to criminal or civil penalties. I give my personal pledge that I shall abide by this assurance of confidentiality.

Signature

NCES understands the legal and ethical need to protect the privacy of the ECLS-K:2011 survey respondents and, with the contractor, has extensive experience in developing data files for release that meet the Government’s requirements to protect individually identifiable data from disclosure. The contractor will conduct a thorough disclosure analysis of the ECLS-K:2011 data when preparing the data files for researchers’ use. This analysis will ensure that NCES has fully complied with the confidentiality provisions contained in 20 U.S. Code, Section 9573. To protect the privacy of respondents as required by 20 U.S. Code, Section 9573, respondents with high disclosure risk will be identified, and a variety of masking strategies will be used to ensure that individuals may not be identified from the data files. These masking strategies include:

• Swapping data on both the public- and restricted-use files;

• Omitting key identification variables such as name, address, telephone number, and school name and address from both the public- and restricted-use files (though the restricted-use file will include NCES school ID that can be linked to other NCES databases to identify a school);

• Omitting key geographic identification variables such as state or ZIP Code from the public-use file;

• Collapsing categories or developing categories for continuous variables to retain information for analytic purposes while preserving confidentiality in public-use files; and

• “Topcoding” and “bottomcoding”¹⁴ continuous variables in public-use files.

A.11 Sensitive Questions

The ECLS-K:2011 is a voluntary study, and no persons are required to respond to the interviews and questionnaires or to participate in the assessments. In addition, respondents may decline to answer any question they are asked. This voluntary aspect of the survey is clearly stated in the advance letter mailed to adult respondents, the study brochure,¹⁵ and the instructions of hard-copy questionnaires, and it is stressed in interviewer training to ensure that interviewers are both communicating this to participants and following these guidelines. Additionally, assessors and health technicians are trained that children may refuse to participate at the time they are visited for an assessment and staff are to respect the children’s wishes. Also, prior to the start of the child questionnaire, children are instructed that if they wish to skip a particular question, they should touch the “Next” button without choosing a response.

The following describes the general nature of the national data collection instruments that will be used during the spring third-grade data collection, as well as topics that may be sensitive for some respondents.

School Administrator Questionnaires. The items in the School Administrator Questionnaire are not of a sensitive nature and should not pose sensitivity concerns to respondents.

Teacher Questionnaires. The information collected in the child-level questionnaires could be regarded as sensitive, because the teacher is asked to provide information about children’s social skills (including ability to exercise self-control, interact with others, resolve conflict, and participate in group activities); problem behaviors (e.g., fighting, arguing, anger, depression, low self-esteem, impulsiveness); learning dispositions (e.g., curiosity, self-direction, inventiveness); and experiences with peer victimization, both as a victim and as the aggressor. A study of bullying, a construct closely related to peer victimization, by the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) found that 16 percent of middle school students reported being bullied (Nansel et al., 2001). Fewer studies have been done with younger children, but those that have been published suggest that bullying is experienced by many children and is related to negative outcomes. Glew et al.’s (2005) study of third through fifth graders found that 22 percent of children were classified as victims, bullies, or both. Victims, and children who were both bullies and victims, had lower achievement scores and were more likely to feel like they did not belong at school compared to bystanders (Glew et al. 2005). Kochenderfer and Ladd (1996) found a relation between victimization and school adjustment outcomes, with victimization related to children’s loneliness and desire to avoid school. Given these findings and the current White House anti-bullying initiative, having the ECLS-K:2011 collect information about peer victimization, in this national sample of elementary school children would be useful.

Within the set of questions about the teacher’s views on school readiness, school climate, and school environment, there are some questions that could be deemed sensitive by some teachers. Teachers may feel that rating statements regarding their satisfaction with their work (e.g., I really enjoy my present teaching job) are sensitive in nature. These items are included because prior research (e.g., Perrachione, Rosser, & Peterson, 2008; Luekens, Lyter, & Fox, 2004; Rhodes, Nevill, & Allen, 2004) indicates that teacher satisfaction may be associated with relevant constructs such as staff retention and stability. Prior to their participation, teachers will be informed and assured that their information will be protected from disclosure except as required by law and that their responses will not be shared with their employers or the parents of their students. Also, teachers and school coordinators will be given an envelope in which they can place their completed questionnaire and seal it before returning their questionnaire to the school coordinator.

Direct Cognitive Assessments. The direct cognitive assessments are essential in determining children’s performance levels as they progress through school. Because schools often use different standards in their own assessments of children and a uniform set of assessment instruments and procedures is needed for the ECLS-K:2011, school-developed assessments cannot be used in the ECLS-K:2011. The items to be included in the ECLS-K:2011 reading, math, and science assessments undergo a sensitivity review and are not themselves sensitive in nature. Similarly, the executive function assessment is not sensitive in nature. However, direct assessments of children do raise certain concerns about the assessment procedures to be used. Of primary concern is the length of the assessments. The cognitive assessments, while untimed, are designed to be administered on average within a 60-minute time period. The child questionnaire is designed to be administered in 10 minutes and measurement of height and weight adds another 5 minutes to the total child assessment time. NCES has developed instruments appropriate to the ages of the participating children, and every effort will be made to staff the study with field assessors who have prior experience in working with children. Issues specific to working with children also figure prominently in assessor training so that the field staff can respond appropriately to children who may become upset or frustrated by the assessment.

Child Questionnaire (CQ). Some of the questions contained in the child questionnaire may be deemed sensitive, particularly those related to peer victimization (e.g., During this school year, how often have other students pushed, shoved, slapped, hit, or kicked you?) and social distress (e.g., I worry that other kids don’t like me.) These types of items were added to the child questionnaire at the recommendation of the October 2012 CRP. CRP members advised that self-reports of children’s social distress are more important to capture in the ECLS-K:2011 than self-reported measures of children’s behavior problems (which were used in the ECLS-K) for a variety of reasons, including differences in children’s ability to provide valid self-reports on these two topics. The CRP recommended assessment of social distress globally, with items measuring fear of negative evaluation (social anxiety), and perception of victimization, three constructs that tend to correlate with one another. The recommended scales were developed for use with children in similar age ranges as the ECLS-K:2011 sampled children.

In response to this recommendation, several items were added to the CQ. Items measuring fear of negative evaluation were recommended from a longer social anxiety scale; in one study, children reporting a high level of fear of negative evaluation using items from this scale self-reported lower perceived social acceptance and lower global self-worth (La Greca and Stone 1993). The peer victimization items that were added mirror the items that are currently being fielded in the second-grade parent and teacher instruments (and are included in the third-grade versions), thus allowing researchers to analyze the relationship between children’s own report of peer victimization and their experiences as reported by parents and teachers. Members of the CRP recommended this approach and suggested the items, which are adapted from a scale developed for this age group (Espelage and Holt 2001). Items adapted from existing scales measuring children’s prosocial behavior (Zimmer-Gembeck, Geiger, and Crick 2005; Crick and Grotpeter 1995) and satisfaction with friends and family (NIH Toolbox for the Assessment of Neurological and Behavioral Function 2012) were added in response to CRP concerns that positive affect and orientation were not tapped by the other items proposed for the CQ, noting a need to balance more negatively-toned items with more positive ones in a child self-report. As with other respondents, children will be told that they can skip any question(s) they do not wish to answer as part of the instructions for completing the questionnaire.

Parent Interviews. Several topics that will be addressed in the spring third-grade parent interview could be sensitive in nature for some respondents. Questions about family income, child-rearing and disciplinary practices, children’s disabilities, children’s receipt of tutoring, children’s peer victimization, parents’ and children’s country of origin, and contact with a child’s nonresidential parent will be included in the parent interview. All of these questions have been asked in earlier versions of the ECLS-K:2011 and will provide another time point in the study for information on these topics.

As mentioned above, few studies of peer victimization have been done with children of the age of the ECLS-K:2011 sample, but those that have been conducted suggest that being the source of or subject to peer victimization is not uncommon during childhood and is related to negative outcomes. Asking both parents and teachers about students experiences with peer victimization would allow examination of this component of bullying in two different contexts. Asking about student experiences with peer victimization in the spring-third grade parent interview will also provide a second time point for questions about this topic, since these same questions were asked in the spring-second grade parent interview.

Questions on most of these topics were included in the ECLS-K and very few parents objected to them. Results from the ECLS-K showed that there were very low levels of missing data in the parent interviews for all items, including the ones mentioned here that are planned to be included in the ECLS-K:2011. For example, in the spring kindergarten round of the ECLS-K, response rates for sensitive items such as family income and marital satisfaction were in the mid to high 90’s (94.4 percent and 99.7 percent, respectively).

Prior research indicates that the topics in the parent interview are correlated with children’s achievement and help to predict children’s preparedness for and success in school. Collecting data on these topics will allow researchers to go beyond descriptive analyses of variation in children’s performance by basic background characteristics such as race/ethnicity and sex. Researchers will be able to test hypotheses about how a wide range of family characteristics relate to early success in school. Therefore, it is important to include questions on the sensitive topics listed above in the parent interviews. Like other study participants, parents will be told that they can refuse to answer any question they wish.

Additionally, because it is imperative that respondents can be found at a later date for follow-up collections in a longitudinal study, the ECLS-K:2011 interview protocol requests locating information from parents. The locating information includes name, address, telephone number, email address, and contact information for an individual who would always know the whereabouts of the respondent. Such information may appear sensitive to respondents who may be leery about providing contact information for people they know; again, they will have the option to refuse to answer these questions.

A.12 Estimated Response Burden

Table A-6 outlines the estimated respondent burden for data collection activities for which this submission is requesting approval (the national spring third-grade data collection, recruitment for the spring fourth-grade data collection, and tracking for the spring fifth-grade data collection). Included in these estimates, where appropriate, is the time that a respondent would need to gather and compile the data and the clerical time needed to fill out the form.

The spring third-grade national data collection includes direct cognitive assessments and self-administered questionnaires with children, measurements of children’s height and weight, evaluations of children’s hearing, parent interviews, regular classroom teacher teacher-/classroom-level self-administered questionnaires, regular classroom teacher child-level self-administered questionnaires, special education teacher teacher-level self-administered questionnaires, special education teacher child-level self-administered questionnaires, and school administrator self-administered questionnaires.

Table A-6 also outlines respondent burden for recruitment for spring fourth-grade and tracking for spring fifth-grade. The processes and procedures for respondent tracking are primarily internal and involve little contact with respondents. The table below includes 5 minutes per parent respondent to read the birthday cards we send to children to keep in touch with them. Recruitment burden time includes the time necessary to read study materials sent to parents, teachers, and school administrators; time during which teachers would discuss the study with a data collection staff member; and time the school administrator will take discussing the study with a school recruiter attempting to secure the school’s participation.

The total number of respondents across all of the data collection activities listed in table A-6, i.e., school administrators, teachers, school coordinators, and parents, is estimated to be 56,773.¹⁶ Because the parent study participants are expected to be the same across rounds, it would not be accurate to calculate a total sample or total number of respondents as a simple sum of the sample sizes and respondents for each round. Instead, to calculate a total, table A-6 uses the maximum estimated sample size or number of respondents across all rounds. Specifically, the largest number of parents involved in the activities delineated in table A-6 is expected to be contacted during recruitment for the spring third-grade national data collection. This is the number used for parents in the calculation of total sample size and total number of respondents. Also, for the spring third-grade activities (recruitment, tracking, and data collection), the largest sample size and number of respondents across these activities is used for the school coordinator, school administrator, and regular classroom teacher. The estimated respondent burden across all these activities translates into a cost amount of $1,400,292 for 52,702 hours.¹⁷ The time children will spend completing the Child Questionnaire and participating in the hearing evaluations has been included in the estimated burden, although the time children will spend completing the cognitive assessments has not been included in the estimated burden.

A.13 Estimates of Cost to Respondents

There are no costs to the respondents to participate beyond the time needed for school coordinators to act as a liaison with the school, for parents to answer the interview questions, for teachers and school administrators to complete the questionnaires, and for the children to participate in the assessments. No equipment, printing, or postage charges will be incurred by the participants.

A.14 Annualized Cost to the Federal Government

Tracking and recruitment activities for the third- and fourth-grade data collections are being carried out under NCES contract ED-IES-12-C-0037 with Westat. The period of performance for this ECLS-K:2011 contract, which includes the sample tracking procedures through the spring fifth-grade data collection, and the spring third-grade and spring fourth-grade national data collections, runs from June 2012 through June 2017. The total cost to the Government for contractor and subcontractor costs for this contract is $27,037,526. This cost estimate includes sample tracking activities, a pilot test of the third- through fifth- grade direct child assessments, all data collection activities from spring-third through spring-fourth grade, design enhancements, and data file delivery and documentation. Table A-6 provides the study costs by year of the contract for the third- and fourth-grade data collections. This clearance is for third-grade data collection, recruitment for the fourth-grade, and tracking for 5^th grade only, so the estimated cost for the activities covered by this clearance are approximately half of the contract total, at $13.6 million.

Table A-6. Study costs per year of the contract for the third- and fourth-grade data collections

Year	Amount
2012	$152,645
2013	$1,703,307
2014	$11,656,689
2015	$12,425,111
2016	$984,531
2017	$115,243
Total	$27,037,526

Table A-7. Estimated respondent burden for the national spring third-grade data collection, previously cleared third-grade tracking and recruitment activities, previously cleared tracking for the spring fourth-grade data collection, recruitment for the spring fourth-grade data collection, and sample tracking for the spring fifth-grade data collection

Respondent type	Sample n	Response rate/ selection rate	Number of respondents	Hours per instrument	Instruments per respondent	Number of responses	Total hours
Spring Third-Grade National Data Collection
Spring Direct Assessment	13,398	.90	12,058	1.17	1	12,058	14,108
Spring Child Questionnaire	13,398	.90	12,058	0.16	1	12,058	1,929
Hearing Evaluation	3,548	.90	3,193	0.25	1	3,193	798
Spring Parent Interview	13,398	.90	12,058	0.58	1	12,058	6,994
Spring School Administrator Questionnaires (SAQ)	2,952	.90	2,657	1.00	1	2,657	2,657
Spring Teacher Questionnaire (TQA/TQS)1	6,200	.90	5,580	0.50	1	5,580	2,790
Spring Teacher Child-level Questionnaire (TQC)	6,200	.90	5,580	0.33	2	11,160	3,683
Spring Special Education Teacher Questionnaire (SPA)	900	.90	810	0.50	1	810	405
Spring Special Education Teacher Child-level Questionnaire (SPB)	900	.90	810	0.33	2	1,620	535
School Coordinator Assistance2	2,952	.90	2,657	0.20	NA	2,657	531
Tracking for Spring-Third Grade
Parent	13,534	100%	13,534	.084	1	13,534	1,137
School Coordinator	3,211	100%	3,211	1.00	1	3,211	3,211
Recruitment for Spring-Third Grade
Parent	13,534	100%	13,534	.25	1	13,534	3,384
Teacher	3,853	100%	3,853	.50	1	3,853	1,927
School Administrator	3,211	100%	3,211	1.00	1	3,211	3,211
Tracking for Spring Fourth-Grade
Parent	12,457	100%	12,457	.084	1	12,457	1,046
School Coordinator	3,314	100%	3,314	1.00	1	3,314	3,314
Recruitment for Spring Fourth-Grade
Parent	12,457	100%	12,457	.25	1	12,457	3,114
Teacher	7,954	100%	7,954	.50	1	7,954	3,977
School Administrator	3,314	100%	3,314	1.00	1	3,314	3,314
Tracking for Spring Fifth-Grade
Parent	11,406	100%	11,406	.084	1	11,406	958
School Coordinator	3,787	100%	3,787	1.00	1	3,787	3,787
Study Total	-	-	56,7733	-	-	143,8254	52,7025

NA Not applicable

¹ This burden estimate includes the curriculum-level questionnaire (TQS).

² School coordinators are school staff members who help organize the logistics for the assessment visit. They do not complete a study instrument.

³ Total number of respondents represents the total number of respondents with no duplication on the number of listed instruments each respective respondent is asked to complete. Shaded numbers do not contribute to the calculation of the total. For the spring third-grade activities (recruitment, tracking, and data collection), the largest n across these activities is used for the school coordinator, school administrator, and regular classroom teacher. It is expected that the parent respondent will be the same at all rounds, so the largest n for parents (recruitment for spring third-grade) is used in the calculation of the total. One teacher typically completes TQA, TQS, and TQC; a separate teacher may be asked to complete one or more questions in the TQS. (See note 1.) One special education teacher completes both SPA and SPB. The sample of students taking the direct assessment is not included in this count because it is not subject to the Paperwork Reduction Act reporting

⁴ Total number of responses represents the total number of respondents multiplied by the total number of instruments they complete. The sample of students taking the direct assessment is not included in this count because it is not subject to the Paperwork Reduction Act reporting.

⁵ The sample of students taking the direct assessment is not included in this count because it is not subject to the Paperwork Reduction Act reporting.

NOTE: Information in the table that appears in green text (i.e., burden for the spring third--grade national data collection and tracking and recruitment for the spring-third grade data collection) pertains to activities and burden that were approved in a previously cleared package. It is included here because these activities will continue after this current submission is cleared. Shaded numbers do not contribute to calculation of the totals.

A.15 Reasons for Changes in Response Burden and Costs

The increase in the burden requested for this collection as compared to the burden last approved under OMB# 1850-0750 is due to the fact that the child questionnaire plus another round of hearing evaluations have been added to the spring third-grade data collection, and because third grade tracking and recruitment and fourth grade tracking are being carried over from the previous clearance.

A.16 Publication Plans and Time Schedule

Publications relevant to the data collection will be part of the reports resulting from the spring third-grade data collection. A data file with data from the third-grade collections will be produced and made available to researchers in a public-use format. Also produced from the third-grade collections will be a restricted-use data file. Researchers who are approved by NCES’s data confidentiality office for a restricted-use license can access restricted-use data files, which include more sensitive items and items that pertain to smaller numbers of children (e.g., information about the presence of specific disabilities). To be approved for a restricted-use license, researchers must demonstrate that they have a research question that cannot be answered with the public-use data and that they have the infrastructure to keep the data secure to prevent loss or unauthorized use. Codebooks and user’s manuals will be produced for use with the public- and restricted-use data files. All data will be merged at the child level. Data files will include all instrument variables (except for those that gather directly identifying information, such as the names of household members) and relevant associated variables, such as derived variables and assessment scores. Data will be released through Electronic Codebook (ECB) software that allows users to create customized data files in standard statistical software packages (SPSS, SAS, and Stata) and to view codebook information. A file record layout will also be provided so that analysis packages other than SPSS/PC, SAS/PC, and Stata/PC (e.g., analysis packages for Apple computers) can be used to analyze the ECLS-K:2011 data.

The ECLS-K:2011 reports and publications will include detailed methodological reports describing all aspects of the data collection effort and psychometric reports outlining properties of the study instruments, as well as reports that describe the population of children who were kindergartners in the 2010-11 school year as they progress through school.

The operational schedule for the ECLS-K:2011 spring third-grade data collection is shown in table A-8. Table A-8 also shows the operational schedule for the tracking and recruitment activities in the spring of third grade, as well as tracking for fourth grade, which were approved in previous clearance requests (1850-0750 v.12-14).

Table A-8. Operational schedule for ECLS-K:2011 data collection activities

Activity	Start date	End date
Sample Tracking and Recruitment for Spring Third-Grade Data Collection
Mail birthday cards	6/1/2013	6/1/2014
Pre-assessment call	8/9/2013	12/20/2013
Tracking movers and updating field management system	8/9/2013	12/20/2013
Parent, teacher, school administrator, school coordinator mailings	2/15/2014	4/16/2014
ECLS-K:2011 Spring Third-Grade Data Collection
Identify and subsample movers1	8/29/2012	12/15/2012
Print/program assessment	7/17/2013	11/26/2013
Print/program questionnaires	10/23/2013	1/6/2014
Train data collectors	3/3/2014	3/9/2014
National data collection	3/10/2014	7/15/2014
Process data	3/15/2014	8/15/2014
Construct data files, develop user’s manual	8/15/2014	7/10/2015
Methodology/psychometric reports2	10/19/2015	12/13/2016
Sample Tracking and Recruitment for Spring Fourth-Grade Data Collection
Mail birthday cards	6/1/2014	6/1/2015
Pre-assessment call	8/11/2014	12/19/2014
Tracking movers and updating field management system	8/11/2014	12/19/2014
Parent, teacher, school administrator, school coordinator mailings	2/15/2015	4/16/2015
Sample Tracking for Spring Fifth-Grade Data Collection
Mail birthday cards	6/1/2015	6/1/2016
Pre-assessment call	8/10/2015	12/18/2015
Tracking movers and updating field management system	8/10/2015	12/18/2015

¹ Activities for identifying and subsampling movers were approved in a previous OMB package.

² The methodology report and psychometric reports will be released significantly later than the data because they will include descriptions of both the third-grade and fourth-grade rounds of data collection.

NOTE: Information in the table that appears in green text (i.e., sample tracking for third-grade data collection) pertains to activities and burden that were approved by OMB in a previous package. It is included here because burden for these activities is being carried over since the activities have not yet been completed.

A.17 Approval for Not Displaying the Expiration Date for OMB Approval

No exemption from the requirement to display the expiration date for OMB approval of the information collection is being requested for the ECLS-K:2011.

A.18 Exceptions to the Certification Statement

No exceptions to the certification statement apply to the ECLS-K:2011.

1Throughout this package, reference is made to the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998-99. For ease of presentation, it will be referred to as the ECLS-K. The new study for which this submission requests approval is referred to as the ECLS-K:2011.

2At each follow-up stage, a small percentage of children had been retained in a grade at some point prior to the wave of interest and therefore were in a grade lower than the target grade of that follow-up stage. In addition, a small number of children were found to be advanced to a higher grade. These off-grade students were not excluded from the study.

3Since the study began, some children have been retained in a grade and some children have been advanced to a grade higher than the modal grade of the study’s children. While the study refers to the data collection rounds by the modal grade for most children in the cohort at the time of data collection, children are still included in the study even if they are in grades other than the modal grade due to retention or advancement.

4In kindergarten, the science assessment had just one stage.

5The questions about school characteristics may be completed by a designee, but the study requests that the administrator complete the section about his/her own characteristics and background.

6 These percentages add to more than 100 percent, as some schools reported two races for children.

7 These percentages add to more than 100 percent, as some schools reported two races for children.

8www.fns.usda.gov/cnd/lunch/aboutlunch/nslpfactsheet.pdf‎ as of 5/21/2013

9Remuneration will not be provided to schools into which study children have transferred because most of those schools have only one study child. Because only one child will be assessed in most of these transfer schools, the burden on the school is minimal. For example, fewer field staff will visit the school, a smaller assessment space can be used, and likely only one classroom and teacher will be disrupted. School administrators, teachers, and (if applicable) special education teachers will still be remunerated for the completion of the hard-copy questionnaires.

10Because final reconciliation of the spring-second grade data collection has not yet been completed, the response rate for the spring-first grade round has been provided here.

11The school coordinator will often be the same school staff member from a previous round of data collection. If that person is not available, then a new staff member will be identified by the school administrator to act as a liaison to the study.

12As with the $200 school incentive, remuneration will not be provided to school coordinators in schools into which study children have transferred since kindergarten if those schools are not attended by at least four ECLS-K:2011 study children.

13Spring third-grade recruitment materials were approved in a previous clearance package – OMB# 1850-0750 v.12.

14Topcoding and bottomcoding refer to the process of recoding outlier values to some acceptable end value. For instance, everyone with a personal income higher than $200,000 may be recoded to $200,001 or more to eliminate the outliers.

15The study brochure was approved in a previous OMB clearance package (OMB No. 1850-0750 v. 8).

16Schools are asked to assign a staff member to help coordinate the assessment activities at the school; these school coordinators are counted in the total number of respondents and their burden hours are counted. However, school coordinators do not complete any study instruments as part of their role as coordinator.

17An hourly rate of $26.57 was used to translate teacher response time into a dollar amount. This rate is based on the National Compensation Survey. See U.S. Department of Labor (2007). National Compensation Survey: Occupational Wages in the United States, May 2011.