Justification

National Center for Education Statistics

National Assessment of Educational Progress

Volume I

Supporting Statement

National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) 2017 User Survey on the Giving Back Tool

OMB# 1880-0542

February 2017

Contents

1 Submittal-Related Information 1

2 Background and Study Rationale 1

3 Recruitment and Data Collection 1

4 Consultations outside the agency 2

5 Justification for Sensitive Questions 2

6 Paying Respondents 2

7 Assurance of Confidentiality 2

8 Estimate of Hourly burden 2

9 Cost to federal government 2

10 Project Schedule 2

1. Submittal-Related Information

This material is being submitted under the generic U.S. Department of Education clearance agreement (OMB# 1880-0542), which provides for the Department to conduct surveys and other studies regarding customer satisfaction.

2. Background and Study Rationale

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is a federally authorized survey of student achievement at grades 4, 8, and 12 in various subject areas such as mathematics, reading, writing, science, U.S. history, civics, geography, economics, and the arts. NAEP is conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), which is part of the Institute of Education Sciences, within the U.S. Department of Education. NAEP’s primary purpose is to assess student achievement in the different subject areas and collect survey questionnaire (i.e., non-cognitive) data to provide context for the reporting and interpretation of assessment results.

To provide supplemental information about the instructional experiences reported by students, teachers are asked to complete a questionnaire¹ about their instructional practices, classroom organization, teaching background and training, and the subject in which students are being assessed. In addition, a school questionnaire is completed by a principal or other school official. The first part tends to cover characteristics of the school, including the length of the school day and year, school enrollment, absenteeism, dropout rates, and the size and composition of the teaching staff. Subsequent parts of the school questionnaire tend to cover tracking policies, curricula, testing practices, special priorities, and schoolwide programs and problems. The school questionnaire also collects information about the availability of resources, policies for parental involvement, special services, and community services. As part of NCES’s efforts to provide useful information to teachers and schools, the NAEPq Feedback to Teachers and Schools tool (henceforth referred to as the “Giving Back” tool to prevent confusion with the feedback survey under consideration in this submittal) was developed to allow teachers and principals to see preliminary data regarding how other participants responded to the questionnaire. Individuals who complete the 2017 NAEP Teacher and School questionnaires are given the option to opt-in to gain access to the Giving Back tool if they would like to see how other teachers and schools responded to the questionnaire. Individuals who opt-in then receive an email containing a link to access the Giving Back tool and a separate email containing a temporary password.

The Giving Back tool was first made available to participating teachers and principals after the 2015 NAEP assessment. While 50% of the respondents opted in to receive access to the tool, only 10% accessed the site. In order to improve the utility of the data and the ease of use of the tool, NCES is seeking feedback from teachers and principals about their experience with the tool. Specifically, we are planning to include a brief, four-question survey for teachers and principals to complete on a voluntary basis.

3. Recruitment and Data Collection

The teachers and principals who access the tool will see a pop-up window inviting them to provide feedback on the Giving Back site. Users who click on the button to provide feedback will be given the short survey. In addition, users who click to exit the tool without having completed the survey will receive an exit dialog box that invites them a second time to complete the survey before exiting the tool. Participation is voluntary.

Upon agreeing to complete the survey, users will be presented with a four question survey [see Volume II]. If a user logs back onto the site after their initial interaction and they have already responded to the survey, they will not be asked again to complete the user survey.

The results of this survey will be used internally by NCES to evaluate the effectiveness of the Giving Back tool and to consider possible opportunities for changes in the future.

4. Consultations outside the agency

Fulcrum, LLC is the NAEP contractor for the development and ongoing support of NAEP digitally based assessments for NCES and will be completing the programming work, data collection, and analysis for the Giving Back user survey.

5. Justification for Sensitive Questions

Throughout the user survey development processes, effort has been made to avoid asking for information that might be considered sensitive or offensive.

6. Paying Respondents

There will not be any incentives for users who participate in the feedback survey.

7. Assurance of Confidentiality

The user survey will not retain any personally identifiable information. Prior to the start of the survey, respondents will be notified that their participation is voluntary. As part of the survey, respondents will be notified that their answers may be used only for research purposes and may not be disclosed, or used, in identifiable form for any other purpose except as required by law [Education Sciences Reform Act of 2002 (20 U.S.C. §9573)].

8. Estimate of Hourly burden

We anticipate approximately 110,000 teachers or principals will complete a NAEP teacher or school questionnaire in 2017. Based on data from 2015, we estimate that 18% of the teachers and principals who complete a teacher or school questionnaire will access the Giving Back tool (19,800) and that 40% of those who access the tool will complete the survey (7,920). The survey is expected to take users five minutes to complete. Table 1 details the hourly burden estimates.

Table 1. Estimate of Hourly Burden

Respondent	Task	Number of respondents	Number of responses	Hours per respondent	Total hours (rounded)
Survey participant	Completion of survey	7,920	7,920	0.08	634

9. Cost to federal government

The estimated cost of this project, including programming and analyzing the user survey, is $19, 350.

10. Project Schedule

Table 3 provides the overall schedule.

Table 3: Schedule

Event	Date
Giving Back site and user survey goes live	May 2017
Analysis of survey results	January 2018-April 2018

1 The NAEP procedures and questionnaires are described and provided in OMB #1850-0928.