OMB83C Change Memo v6

_MEMORANDUM NATIONAL CENTER FOR EDUCATION STATISTICS

Institute of Education Sciences

United States Department of Education

Date: August 16, 2018

To: Robert Sivinski, OMB

Through: Kashka Kubzdela, NCES

From: Mary Coleman, NCES

Re: International Early Learning Study (IELS) 2018 Main Study Change Request (OMB# 1850-0936 v.6)

The International Early Learning Study (IELS) is a new study sponsored by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), an intergovernmental organization of industrialized countries. In the United States, the IELS is conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). The IELS focuses on young children and their cognitive and non-cognitive skills and competencies as they transition to primary school. The IELS is designed to examine: children’s early learning and development in a broad range of domains, including social and cognitive skills; the relationship between children’s early learning and children’s participation in early childhood education and care (ECEC); the role of contextual factors, including children’s individual characteristics and their home backgrounds and experiences, in promoting young children’s growth and development; and how early learning varies across and within countries prior to beginning, or in the early stages of primary school. In 2018, in the participating countries, including the United States, the IELS will assess nationally-representative samples of 5-year-old children enrolled in public and private schools that offer kindergarten in the United States through direct and indirect measures, and will collect contextual data about their home learning environments, ECEC histories, and demographic characteristics. The IELS will measure young children’s knowledge, skills, and competencies in both cognitive and non-cognitive domains, including language and literacy, mathematics and numeracy, executive function/self-regulation, and social emotional skills. This assessment will take place as children are transitioning to primary school and will provide data on how U.S. children entering kindergarten compare with their international peers on skills deemed important for later success. The IELS countries conducted a field test in the fall of 2017 to evaluate newly developed assessment instruments and questionnaires and to test the study operations. The IELS 2018 main study recruitment began in September 2017, and the main study data collection was approved by OMB in July 2018 (OMB# 1850-0936 v.5). This request is to provide: 1) Spanish translations of the previously approved parent communication materials and parent questionnaire, 2) the final main study School Coordinator’s manual, and 3) scripts for the two planned IELS respondent recruitment videos. This request does not introduce changes to the approved estimated respondent burden or the costs to the federal government.

Additions and Changes to the Previously Approved ILES Submission (OMB# 1850-0936 v.5)

• Part A: we removed a reference to the planned future submission of this change request.

• Part A: to point out that the last terms of clearance have been already fulfilled, we added the following text to section A.9 on page 7: “As the terms of clearance of the IELS field test data collection package (1850-0936 v.4), OMB requested a summary describing the results of using the pre-paid incentive (“At conclusion of data collection, NCES will provide OMB with a report describing the results of using a pre-paid incentive for both teachers and parents. Include, at a minimum, a table showing if incentive checks were cashed by whether or not the response was successfully collected.”). The description of incentives for teachers and parents that follows in this section provides the information that fulfills these terms of clearance.”

• Part B: we removed a reference to the planned future submission of this change request.

• Appendix B: we added Spanish language versions of the following respondent materials:

  • Study Introduction Letter for Parents – Spanish Version (p. 104)

  • FAQ for Parents – Spanish Version (p. 106)

  • Parent Consent Module of MyIELS.us – Spanish Version (p. 109)

  • Notification Letter for Parents - Spanish Version (p. 113)

  • Implicit Consent Letter for Parents – Spanish Version (p. 115)

  • Implicit Consent Form for Parents – Spanish Version (p. 117)

  • Explicit Consent Letter for Parents – Spanish Version (p. 118)

  • Explicit Consent Form for Parents – Spanish Version (p. 120)

• Appendix D: we replaced the previously approved version of the Spanish field test questionnaire with the translated Spanish version of the IELS 2018 main study parent questionnaire, and we removed a reference to the planned future submission of this change request.

• Appendix E: we replaced the field test version of the Study Coordinator (SC) manual with the final main study version. This manual will be emailed to SCs, who are school staff who act as a liaison between IELS and the school. It outlines their responsibilities throughout the field period. A hard-copy of the manual is available for SCs upon request. The field test version was updated to reflect the main study dates and the change in procedures related to the fact that parent incentives will be a post-paid rewards card and not a pre-paid check, and to reflect the main study teacher incentive amount instead of the field test amount. Also, the content of Appendix A of the manual (E-Filing Instructions) was added (pp. 19-24).

• Appendix F: storyboards for the two planned IELS recruitment videos:

• The Student Experience Video is for parents of children selected for IELS. The goal is to reassure parents that their child’s participation in IELS will be a stress-free, positive experience.

• The Value Proposition Video is intended to simultaneously communicate the value of IELS and encourage participation from selected schools, teachers, parents, and students. The video is intended to feel friendly and motivational, while maintaining a high level of integrity and clarity.

Please note that links for the actual videos are not yet available, as filming begins this week.

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