NSP attachments

NSP Attachments_all.pdf

Generic Clearance for Cognitive, Pilot and Field Studies for Bureau of Justice Statistics Data Collection Activities

NSP attachments

OMB: 1121-0339

Document [pdf]
Download: pdf | pdf
NSP Attachments
Attachment
B
C
D
E
F

Name
Cognitive test invitation letter
Cognitive recruitment call script
Survey cover letter
Cognitive interview script
IRB approval

Page
1
2
4
5
31

<>
<> <>
<>
<>>
<>
<>, <> <>
The Honorable <>,
The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), along with the National District Attorney’s Association (NDAA)
and RTI International (RTI), would like to invite you to participate in a test of the upcoming National
Survey of Prosecutors (NSP). BJS is working with NDAA and RTI to develop the 2020 NSP. Conducted
periodically since 1990, the NSP provides nationwide data on prosecutorial activities, as well as a
variety of administrative and legal issues facing prosecutors who handle felony cases in state courts.
Next year, the survey will be sent to about 750 prosecutor’s offices nationwide.
As we prepare for the national data collection, we are seeking feedback from prosecutors to ensure the
survey questions and instructions are as clear as possible, to more accurately estimate and adjust the
survey’s burden on respondents, and to make certain the data we are collecting are useful to you and
your field. We are writing to ask for your office’s participation in providing feedback. Through this
process, the NSP team hopes to hear directly from prosecutors about how to change the NSP instrument
so that data collection will be more efficient for offices like yours. This request is not going to a large
number of agencies—yours was specifically selected and we hope you can participate. If you agree, we
would:
•
•
•

provide a copy of the NSP draft survey to your office’s point of contact (POC);
ask the POC to complete the survey and return it to us; and
schedule a brief phone interview (1 hour maximum) with RTI staff to discuss the survey.

We hope to collect this feedback throughout January and February of 2020, and our team can be flexible
to your schedule. In the coming weeks, you will receive calls and emails from RTI about your office’s
participation in this process. Please let us know if you have any questions about this request. You may
contact Ruthie Grossman at RTI at [email protected], or 919-541-6976 or me at 202-598-6457 or
[email protected].
Sincerely,

Suzanne M. Strong
BJS NSP Project Manager
1

Sample Call Script for Nonresponse Calls—Cognitive Interview Recruitment Version
[IF CALL RINGS TO A GATEKEEPER]
Hello, this is <> calling on behalf of the Bureau of Justice Statistics in the U.S.
Department of Justice regarding the 2020 National Survey of Prosecutors. I am following up on a letter
that we sent addressed to <>. May I speak with <>?
[IF LEAVING MESSAGE ON VOICEMAIL OR WITH A GATEKEEPER]
Hello, this is <> calling on behalf of the Bureau of Justice Statistics in the U.S.
Department of Justice regarding the 2020 National Survey of Prosecutors. I am following up on a letter
that we sent addressed to <>. I was hoping to speak to someone in your office about an
opportunity to provide feedback to the Bureau of Justice Statistics about the draft National Survey of
Prosecutors, which is going into the field in 2020. Please give me a call back at [PHONE NUMBER] for
further details on the 2020 National Survey of Prosecutors and more information on how you can
participate in the feedback process. Thank you, and have a good day!
[IF CALL REACHES OR IS ROUTED TO AGENCY POC]
Hello, this is <> calling on behalf of the Bureau of Justice Statistics in the U.S.
Department of Justice regarding the 2020 National Survey of Prosecutors. We are in the planning stages
of the upcoming NSP, and we recently sent you a letter inviting you to provide input on the 2020 NSP
data collection. I wanted to follow up with you to confirm that you received the request.
[IF QUESTIONS ABOUT THE SURVEY]
-

-

National Survey of Prosecutors (NSP) has been conducted periodically since 1990; the
last available data was in 2007.
The NSP provides data on prosecutorial activities nationwide as well as a variety of
administrative and legal issues facing prosecutors who handle felony cases in state
courts.
The survey will go into the field in the summer of 2020.

[IF QUESTIONS ABOUT COGNITIVE INTERVIEW PROCESS]
-

-

We’re requesting input from around 25 prosecutor offices.
Input involves:
 Scheduling a time to discuss their experience completing the survey
 Completing the survey independently, and timing themselves completing it
 Speaking with an RTI representative at the scheduled timeslot to provide input
about survey questions, clarity of instructions, and process for accessing
requested data
This is an opportunity for an office to provide direct feedback in the early planning
stages of the survey. Feedback will help to make completing the survey smoother and
more efficient for ALL prosecutor’s offices when the survey is in the field.

[IF AGENCY HAS NOT RECEIVED LETTER]
Let me review the information we have on file for your agency.
[REVIEW E-MAIL ADDRESS AND MAILING ADDRESS.]
[ASK FOR THE POC’S PREFERRED METHOD OF CONTACT AND OFFER TO RE-SEND THE
INFORMATION.]
2

[IF AGENCY IS WILLING TO PARTICIPATE IN COGNITIVE INTERVIEW]
Great! Let me get some information from you so that I can send you the survey and schedule a
time for you to discuss it with a member of our team.
[REVIEW E-MAIL ADDRESS AND MAILING ADDRESS.]
[IDENTIFY AN INTERVIEW TIMESLOT THAT WORKS FOR POC AND CI TEAM MEMBER AND
SCHEDULE INTERVIEW]
[ASK FOR THE POC’S PREFERRED METHOD OF CONTACT AND SEND THE INFORMATION.]

3

<>
<> <>
<>
<>>
<>
<>, <> <>
The Honorable <>,
Thank you for agreeing to participate in the cognitive testing related to the 2020 National Survey of
Prosecutors (NSP). Your participation will help us to revise the survey to reduce the survey’s
burden on you and your colleagues. It will also help us to ensure that the survey is useful to your
field.
We would like to get your feedback on the following:
• Instructions, terms, or questions that are vague or insufficiently defined;
• Answer choices that are unclear, confusing, or insufficient; and
• The value of the questions and answers to your work as a prosecutor.
Please track the amount of time it takes you to complete the entire survey. In particular, section C of
the survey is expected to take the most time and effort – please pay attention to how difficult this
section is for you to complete. If you think the questions are too difficult to extract the answers, you
do not need to complete those questions but please estimate the time it would take you to query a
database or confer with colleagues to get those answers.
Thank you for agreeing to participate in this process! As arranged previously, I will call you at
<
File Typeapplication/pdf
AuthorStrong, Suzanne
File Modified2020-03-19
File Created2020-03-19

© 2024 OMB.report | Privacy Policy