NTPS 2017-18 Responses to Passback

Memorandum United States Department of Education

Institute of Education Sciences

National Center for Education Statistics

DATE: June 22, 2017

TO: Robert Sivinski and E. Ann Carson, OMB

THROUGH: Kashka Kubzdela, OMB Liaison, NCES

FROM: Amy Ho, NCES

SUBJECT: 2017-18 National Teacher and Principal Survey (NTPS 2017-18) – Responses to OMB Passback (OMB# 1850-0911 v.18)

Below please find NCES responses to OMB passback received on June 21, 2017.

1. Part A, page 7 top (core modules of Teacher Questionnaire, #6) (also NTPS item # 11-1). The footnote says there will not be a TFS or PFS administration using the data from NTPS 2017-18. If that is the case, why is NCES still collecting the contact information of the teacher and their spouse for follow-up in TFS or PFS? This is PII that seems extraneous if nothing is going to be done with it.

NCES Response: In comparison to NTPS 2015-16, for NTPS 2017-18 we removed a number of items in the Contact Information section from the teacher questionnaires because there will not be a follow-up study following the 2017-18 NTPS collection. We removed items asking for spouse information, and contact information for two additional persons who know how to get in touch with the teacher during the coming years. However, we decided to keep the remaining contact information items for the following reasons: (1) teachers’ names are required to verify that that the sampled teacher was, in fact, the teacher who completed the questionnaire; (2) principals’ email addresses are needed to conduct a quality control check on the vendor provided information; (3) teachers and principals’ phone and email address are used, as needed, to follow-up with the responding teacher or principal to verify some of the information they provide on their questionnaire (needed in rare cases); and (4) teachers and principals’ mailing address are important to examine their willingness to provide this information under the NTPS 2017-18 data collection conditions in order to better prepare for when this information will be essential for the PFS and TFS follow up collections to NTPS 2019-20. We added this explanation to the referenced footnote in Part A.

2. Part A, pages 5 and 7 (NTPS item #s 10-1, 10-2a, 10-3a, 10-4) – on both the principal and teacher questionnaires, a rotating module from the TALIS survey will be used. Why is this necessary? TALIS 2018 (1850-0888) is underway (or is supposed to be). Is it important to analyze the covariance of responses to the questions from that module with the NTPS standard questions? If so, this needs to be explicitly stated – as is, the package states that collecting this module in NTPS allows for international comparisons, which is what TALIS does. Not making the link with why these questions also need to be on NTPS.

NCES Response: The TALIS items are being included as a step toward standardizing some of the information we collect from teachers and principals across NCES studies. The TALIS items selected are similar to existing NTPS items or ones that we would consider adding to NTPS. If the items yield comparable response distributions to the NTPS items, NCES will look to utilize either the NTPS or TALIS version in future cycles of the study. Additionally, we anticipate that having the same items on both studies will provide a basis for us to link the international results from multiple countries to the teacher data in NTPS. NCES plans to explore ways that would allow us to compare NTPS data to data from the other countries. We amended the text in Part A to indicate the additional uses.

3. Part A, page 8 top – again, the package has said that there will be no PFS or TFS follow-up associated with the NTPS 2017/18 – why is this follow-up being listed as a research issue for the NTPS?

NCES Response: The language about TFS and PFS were provided as background information and not necessarily an issue for NTPS 2017-18. The following statement has been added to the end of the first paragraph on page 8 to clarify: “Although TFS and PFS will not be conducted following NTPS 2017-18, some of the information collected in 2017-18 will help inform TFS and PFS 2020-21.”

4. Part B, page 22 – What is the rationale behind offering teachers in ‘at-risk’ domain schools $10 or $20, when the prior incentive experiment used $5/$10 for teachers

NCES Response: As described on page 21 of Part B, the $10/$20 incentive is a contingency targeted at teachers determined as putting NTPS data collection as ‘at-risk’ for meeting NCES publishability standards if response rates are not met for key reporting domains. Given that these teachers will be late responders who, in some cases, would have already received a smaller incentive, we felt a larger amount may be needed to increase the chances of their participation. The contingency is used in NTPS 2017-18 as an experiment to allow us determine whether the larger amount as an ‘at-risk’ treatment, is effective at mitigating publishability risks. As described on pages 21-22 on Part B, this phase of the incentives experiment is called the contingency plan incentive experiment and selection of sample members into this treatment will be independent of the main NTPS incentive experiment.

5. Part B, pages 26-27 – What is the incentive amount being offered to private schools in the experiment? Will it be run similar to the one described earlier, where the incentive will only be offered after a certain amount of time has passed with nonresponse, and then back-paid to all teachers who have already responded? Text seems to indicate this, but it should be spelled out.

NCES Response: The incentive amounts and procedures for both public and private schools were provided together in one section on pages 19-22. To clarify the plan, the following statement has been added to the end of the section on page 22 of Part B: “The initial incentives experiment and secondary contingency plan incentives experiment, as described above, will follow the same procedures with the same incentive amount (depending on priority status and treatment group assignment) for both the public and private schools in the NTPS 2017-18 sample.”