FNS-742 Data Study (2 of 2)

Appendix C – Interview Guides

Control Number: 0584-0524, expiration date: 09/30/2019

Interview with State staff person

• Prior to being contacted about this project, were you aware of the quality/integrity issues surrounding FNS-742 data?

• Did you know that FNS uses 742 data in many ways, e.g., informing policy making and technical assistance to legislators?

• Do SFAs contact the State for technical assistance in the process of correcting their data?

  • How many SFAs contacted the State?

  • Did one contact usually resolve the problem or did it take multiple contacts?

  • How much time, either on average or in whole, did the State spend providing technical assistance to SFAs?

• As far as you know, how easy or difficult was the process of incorporating the edit checks into your system (i.e. having a programmer incorporate code for the checks)?

• Would you be inclined to use these edit checks in the future, after this project is over?

Interviews with SFA(s)

• How confident are you in the data you report to the State each year?

• What is your experience with reporting verification results on an annual basis?

  • Do you have to re-learn the form every year, or is it like riding a bicycle?

• How many error messages did you encounter when first attempting to submit your data?

• Were the error messages helpful in finding or identifying the errors?

• Were the error messages helpful in correcting the errors?

• How could the error messages/process be improved to make reporting easier?

• Were you able to correct the errors that were flagged by the system?

  • If yes, how did you go about accomplishing that?

    • What went wrong the first time around?

  • If not, what prevented you from being able to do so?

• Is there anything that the State or FNS could do that would be helpful in this process in the future?