Fast Track Clearance Request

Request for Approval under the “Generic Clearance for the Collection of Routine Customer Feedback” (OMB Control Number: 2127-0682)

TITLE OF INFORMATION COLLECTION:

Fast Track Generic Clearance for the Collection of Qualitative Feedback on Agency Service Delivery

PURPOSE:

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) was established by the Highway Safety Act of 1970 (23 U.S.C. 101) to carry out a Congressional mandate to reduce the mounting number of deaths, injuries and economic losses resulting from motor vehicle crashes on our Nation’s highways. In support of this mission, NHTSA has developed a public service communications campaign designed to deter impaired driving. At this time, NHTSA proposes to conduct information collections to assess the public’s current attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors related to impaired driving and receive direct feedback on the existing campaign’s creative assets. The insights from the research will be used to optimize campaign strategy and creative development moving forward.

For this, NHTSA proposes to conduct 9 focus group sessions, each lasting 90 minutes with 6 participants in each. For the recruiting of these participants, NHTSA proposes to recruit up to 8 people for each of the 9 groups, although only 6 recruits per group will actually be seated as participants for the focus group session. Recruiting will be done via telephone screening calls estimated to take no more than 10 minutes each. The total estimated burden for this information collection is 93 hours.

DESCRIPTION OF RESPONDENTS:

The target audience of the campaign is U.S. adult male drivers age 21-34 who drink alcohol at least occasionally. Six focus groups will consist of males in this target group, and three focus groups will consist of couples; one member of each couple will be part of the target audience of males 21-34. Groups will be segmented into two age groups: 21-27 and 28-34. Respondents will include a fair representation of demographics including race/ethnicity, education level, and income. The focus group discussions will be conducted in three diverse geographic markets, proposed as Kansas City, Boston, and Austin, TX.

To better explore the social dynamics of drinking behavior, each focus group will consist of friendship groups. For the six male 21-34 groups, the composition will be three friendship pairs or two friendship triads per group (6 respondents). The three couple groups will be comprised of three couples per group (6 respondents). This recruitment strategy will encourage accountability and honesty while allowing for individual expression within the group. It will also allow for better understanding of the social considerations that impact decisions made in group situations.

TYPE OF COLLECTION: (Check one)

[ ] Customer Comment Card/Complaint Form [ ] Customer Satisfaction Survey

[ ] Usability Testing (e.g., Website or Software [ ] Small Discussion Group

[X] Focus Group [ ] Other: Online Survey

CERTIFICATION:

I certify the following to be true:

1. The collection is voluntary.

2. The collection is low-burden for respondents and low-cost for the Federal Government.

3. The collection is non-controversial and does not raise issues of concern to other federal agencies.

4. The results are not intended to be disseminated to the public.

5. Information gathered will not be used for the purpose of substantially informing influential policy decisions.

6. The collection is targeted to the solicitation of opinions from respondents who have experience with the program or may have experience with the program in the future.

Name: Susan McMeen

To assist review, please provide answers to the following question:

Personally Identifiable Information:

1. Is personally identifiable information (PII) collected? [ ] Yes [X] No

2. If Yes, will any information that is collected be included in records that are subject to the Privacy Act of 1974? [ ] Yes [ ] No

3. If Yes, has an up-to-date System of Records Notice (SORN) been published? [ ] Yes [ ] No

Gifts or Payments:

Is an incentive (e.g., money or reimbursement of expenses, token of appreciation) provided to participants? [X] Yes [ ] No

Each respondent will be provided with $75 following their participation in a focus group session. This amount is in line with the industry standard. These industry-standard stipends help to ensure that respondents can be recruited efficiently and ensure their arrival and participation in the groups. These standards exist to provide fair compensation for costs incurred by participants while attending groups, based on the location of and expenses in each market.

BURDEN HOURS

No. of Respondents	No. of Responses per Respondent	Average Burden per Response (hours)	Total Burden Hours
72 Participants (Screening call)	1	1/6 hours (10 minutes)	12
54 participants (Focus group discussion)	1	1.5 hour (90 minutes)	81
TOTAL			93

The maximum total input cost, if all respondents were interviewed on the job, is estimated as follows:

$16.71 per hour x 93 interviewing hours = $1,554

FEDERAL COST: The estimated annual cost to the Federal government is $55,000.

If you are conducting a focus group, survey, or plan to employ statistical methods, please provide answers to the following questions:

The selection of your targeted respondents

1. Do you have a customer list or something similar that defines the universe of potential respondents and do you have a sampling plan for selecting from this universe? [X] Yes [ ] No

If the answer is yes, please provide a description of both below (or attach the sampling plan)? If the answer is no, please provide a description of how you plan to identify your potential group of respondents and how you will select them?

Each focus group facility in each city does the recruiting on NHTSA’s behalf, per the screeners NHTSA provides. The facility’s recruiting staff works primarily from a pool within their proprietary database of people in that particular marketplace who have previously submitted demographic, lifestyle and product preference information. So based on submission of NHTSA’s screener, the recruitment manager will filter the database to search for potential respondents in the project’s specifications. Then the recruiters will place telephone calls to those potential respondents to administer the full screener.

If there is more than one person in a household who may match the screening criteria, the recruiter will screen only the first one willing to be screened. After going through the database, if the recruiters can't fill the project’s total numbers and/or quotas, the secondary step is the facility procuring sample from any of numerous national sample providers of names, addresses and phone numbers. The recruiters then make phone calls to this list until the recruiting is completed.

If an individual qualifies based on the screener, he will be invited to participate. For the proposed friendship groups, if an individual qualifies and agrees to participate, he will also be asked to provide the names and contact information of at least 2 friends (males 21-34) who will then be contacted to undergo the same screening protocol. For the couples groups, qualified individuals will be asked to bring a significant other who must consent to participation.

Please see recruitment screener attached.

Administration of the Instrument

1. How will you collect the information? (Check all that apply)

[ ] Web-based or other forms of Social Media

[X] Telephone

[X] In-person

[ ] Mail

[ ] Other, Explain

2. Will interviewers or facilitators be used? [X] Yes [ ] No

Please make sure that all instruments, instructions, and scripts are submitted with the request.

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