School Survey of Crime and Safety (SSOCS) Incident Count Check Cognitive Interviews Update

Interviewer Instructions: The following scripts should NOT be read verbatim, instead the interviewer should be thoroughly familiar with the content in advance. However, highlighted text MUST be said. Text in brackets [ ] are instructions for the interviewer.

Hello, my name is <your name> and I work for American Institutes for Research. It’s nice to meet you, and thanks for talking to us today. [Introduce anyone else that is on the call.]

[Create small talk to build a rapport]

Technology Set-Up [Skip if respondent has automatically turned on their webcam]

If respondent hasn’t turned out their camera, here are instructions on how to them do it. Also, take this time to turn on your camera if you haven’t yet.

Do you have a video camera that we could use? [If no, move on. If yes…]

Could you turn that on for me? I’ve found that having the video on and the ability to see each other is really helpful during interviews.

Make sure respondent is completely signed into GTM and not just on the phone. (You can tell if respondent has both a phone and camera icon next to their name. If there is only a phone, have them click on the GTM link that was provided to fully sign in).
Turning on the webcam:

Respondent needs to click the “camera” button in the top right corner. It will be the last in a series of three buttons – a phone, a television/screen, and a camera recorder.
They need to click on that last button.
Camera should automatically turn on.

If they can’t see you, have them click on the right click on the tab below the camera button > the three dots below that > click on “Show all webcams”

[This is also when you can confirm that the respondent received the SSOCS Incidents Section Handout. They do not need to have it open at this moment but will soon.]

Interview Introduction

We are conducting interviews to learn more about the process schools go through to fill out the School Survey on Crime and Safety (SSOCS). We have been hired by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) to administer these interviews, with the goal of learning about your experiences with reporting information focused on school crime incidents that are required to be filled out as part of SSOCS. As you may or may not be aware, similar questions are also included on the Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC), another Department of Education data collection, which is completed at the district level. We are exploring the context around the reporting of incident items on SSOCS and CRDC with the goal of removing the questions from one of these surveys and reducing burden on responding schools and districts.

You were chosen to participate in this interview because your school participated in the SSOCS data collection during the 2017–18 school year. As a principal, we value your opinion and would like to hear your perspective on providing counts of crime incidents at your school on surveys such as SSOCS. We recognize that everyone has different experiences or procedures when it comes to reporting information for SSOCS, as well as how school crime and safety incidents are tracked and recorded, and we want to stress that there are no right or wrong answers. Your responses during this interview will be used by NCES to gain a better understanding of the process involved for respondents to report crime incidents on SSOCS and CRDC. Nothing you say will change any previous responses you have provided as part of SSOCS. This is not an evaluation of your answers on SSOCS.

In order for us to advise NCES on how to proceed, we need to hear your thoughtful and honest feedback. I want you to know that your participation is voluntary, and all of the information you provide may be used only for statistical purposes and may not be disclosed, or used, in identifiable form for any other purpose except as required by law [if requested: 20 U.S.C. §9573 and 6 U.S.C. §151]. Your responses will only be used to improve future data collections. We want you to feel like you can speak freely, and what you say here will not be repeated outside of this project. You do not have to answer any question that you do not want to and can stop the interview at any time you wish.

The interview should take about an hour. I will be asking the questions, and _______________ will be taking notes. We would like to record audio from our conversation to make sure that we catch all of the important information that you will share with us and to serve as our back up to the notes that _______________ will take today. This recording will only be used for note-taking purposes, will be stored securely, and will be destroyed after the project is over. Is it okay for me to record you?

[IF NO, DO NOT RECORD, you will need to rely on notetaking] Ok, I will not turn on the audio recorder.

[If yes, turn on the GTM recording which is at the bottom of the GTM window]

If at any time you want to skip a question or stop, just let me know. Any additional questions before we start?

Probes that could be helpful in prompting respondent to elaborate:

What are you thinking about?
Please tell me what you are thinking.
Can you tell me more about that?
What are you planning to do next?
Is there anything else you can do?

STEP 2: INTERVIEW

Background Questions:

Before we get started, we have a few background questions about your role at your school and your experience with SSOCS.

How would you describe your overall role at your school?
What are your day-to-day activities?
Please describe your involvement in school safety and discipline at your school.
Did you complete any special training or certification for data collection and/or data entry procedures for tracking school crime incidents? If so, what was it?
This school participated in the 2017–18 SSOCS data collection and when we spoke previously you indicated that you had the primary responsibility for completing the section reporting counts of crime incidents that occurred at school. Is this correct?
1. If yes, were there other staff who assisted you in completing the section reporting counts of crime incidents that occurred at your school, and those that were reported to police?
  1. If yes, what positions did these staff hold?”
2. If no, proceed to the questions on the last page of the protocol for situations where the respondent was not primarily responsible for completing SSOCS.
Are you familiar with the Civil Rights Data Collection, also known as CRDC? (If yes, ask respondent to elaborate if necessary.)

2017–18 Incident Count Questions

Great! For these next few questions, we will discuss a specific question on SSOCS:2018, Question 30 in the Incidents section. [Confirm that respondent has the SSOCS Incidents Section Handout in front of them.] This question discusses the number of incidents of varying offenses that have taken place at schools. Please take a few moments to read this question fully. [Give R time to look over the question.]

First, we’d like you to try to recall the process of collecting the data and answering the 2017–18 SSOCS, in particular for filling out the incident counts requested in question 30.

How well do you remember that process?
Could you describe it for me?
1. [If respondent isn’t sure how to begin…] Start with the communication (email or mail) you received about the SSOCS data collection before the submission period. Who was the communication addressed to? Did you look out for it? How did you know when you were supposed to submit the data?
Looking at item 30, were there any words in these questions that you didn’t recognize or were not sure about? Which ones?
Were there any instructions in these questions that you found confusing or difficult to follow? Which ones?
How did you gather the information required to answer these incident count items?

If respondent has already answered the following questions during the process of answering the previous questions, skip ahead.

Are these data kept by your school a record of every year?
Does your school track this information in a database or another record keeping system?
Did you have any quality assurance or review processes in place to verify the counts you supplied before submitting them to the SSOCS survey?

If yes, please tell me about them.

Did you encounter any specific issues or challenges with these particular elements of the data collection?

If yes, can you give us some examples of these issues/challenges?
Which incident counts were easy to provide? Which were difficult to provide?

At this time, you should refer to the SSOCS Incidents Count Sheet for questions 16 through 23 which will ask about the 2017–18 Specific Item Data Collection and 2017–18 CRDC Comparison. Do not share this sheet with the respondent.

When you finish going through the SSOCS Incidents Count Sheet with the respondent, return to the protocol questions below:

Current Data Collection Process:

Thank you for that information. Now I’d like to ask you a few general questions about the processes your school currently has in place to record and report these kinds of incident data.

If you had to answer this question today, would the process be different than it was in 2017–18?

If yes, describe that process for me.
[Suggested probe] Can you tell me more about that?

How does your school currently collect and record data related to the incident counts?

[Suggested probe] Can you tell me more about this system/process?

How do you currently report data on incident counts to your district?

[Suggested probe] Can you tell me more about this system/process?

Conclusion

We’re almost at the end of our interview and only have a few more questions.

Is there anything else you would like to say about SSOCS data collection or the incident count question that you haven’t mentioned yet?
What is the best address to which to send your gift card?

Street:

City:

State:

Zip:

For situations where the respondent was NOT primarily responsible for completing SSOCS

My apologies! I was under the impression from our prior conversation that you were primarily responsible for completing the 2017–18 SSOCS questionnaire. [Pause and see if respondent offers an explanation.]

Who was involved in that process? Are they still at this school?
1. If yes, do you have their contact information?

Thank you so much! I appreciate your time today.

[END OF INTERVIEW; do not mention the gift card; let Sidney/Jana/Korantema know what happened ASAP]

SSOCS Incident Count Sheet

DO NOT SHARE WITH RESPONDENT

[FORMATTING NOTE: All highlighted portions are examples; data will be pulled from the SSOCS & CRDC data files and will be linked to each other automatically generating the entire document.]

School: ________________________________________________

District: ________________________________________________

SSOCS Process Questions

[FORMATTING NOTE: The incident types discussed in questions 16, 18, and 20 will be consistent across all interviews and chosen based on frequency across all schools.]

Incident Type	SSOCS Count
Rape or attempted rape	1
Homicide	0
Shooting	0

Based on your school’s response to the 2017–18 SSOCS, 1 incident(s) of rape or attempted rape was reported for this school. Could you tell me how you arrived at this answer?

[Suggested probe] Tell me more about why you answered 1.
[Suggested probe] Can you tell me more about that?

Did your process for reporting counts of homicide and shootings for this school differ from that you took to report rape or attempted rape?

If yes: Could you describe how the process differed in reporting these different types of incidents?

-----------------------

Incident Type	SSOCS Count
Sexual assault	1
Robbery with a weapon	2
Robbery without a weapon	17
Physical attack or fight with a weapon	8
Threat of physical attack or fight with a weapon	12

Based on your school’s response to the 2017–18 SSOCS, 8 incident(s) of physical attacks or fights with a weapon were reported for this school. Could you tell me how you arrived at this answer?

[Suggested probe] Tell me more about why you answered 8.
[Suggested probe] Can you tell me more about that?

Did your process for reporting counts of sexual assault, robbery with or without a weapon or threat of physical attack or fight with a weapon for this school differ from the process that you took to report physical attack or fight with a weapon?

If yes: Could you describe how the process differed in reporting these different types of incidents?

-----------------------

Incident Type	SSOCS Count
Physical attack or fight without a weapon	68
Threat of physical attack without a weapon	92
Possession of a firearm or explosive device	2

Based on your school’s response to the 2017–18 SSOCS, 68 incident(s) of threat of physical attack without a weapon were reported for this school. Could you tell me how you arrived at this answer?

[Suggested probe] Tell me more about why you answered 68.
[Suggested probe] Can you tell me more about that?

Did your process for reporting counts of physical attack or fight without a weapon or possession of a firearm or explosive device for this school differ from the process that you took to report threat of physical attack without a weapon?

If yes: Could you describe how the process differed in reporting these different types of incidents?

-----------------------

CRDC Comparison

[FORMATTING NOTE: This incident type discussed in this section will not be consistent across schools. Instead it will be dependent upon the most serious offense reported for that school.]

Your district also reported counts of crime incidents for your school on CRDC for the same 2017–18 school year. In reviewing their response for the number of incidents of rape or attempted rape, we found that the district reported a higher/lower/the same number of incidents on CRDC than your school reported on SSOCS.

IF LOWER/HIGHER: What are some reasons you can think of for why the CRDC count may differ from what was reported for SSOCS?

IF EQUAL: What are some reasons you can think of for why the CRDC count may be the same as that reported for SSOCS?

Do you know how the district acquires counts of incidents from your school?
1. [Suggested probe] Could you tell me more about that process?

CRDC Interview Protocol

School:
District:
State:
Respondent’s Name:
Date:
Interviewers:

Consent Form:	☐Signed copy received	☐ Waiting on signed copy
NDA:	☐Signed copy received	☐ Waiting on signed copy	☐ N/A

Materials:

Protocol
CRDC Offenses Section Handout (respondent should have as well)
CRDC Incident Counts Sheet – With School Info [for districts where school(s) has given consent] (not shared with district)
CRDC Incident Counts Sheet – No School Info [for districts where school(s) DID NOT give consent, or district respondent has NOT signed NDA] (not shared with district)

STEP 1: WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION SCRIPT

Hello, my name is <your name> and I work for American Institutes for Research. It’s nice to meet you, and thanks for talking to us today. [Introduce anyone else that is on the call.]

[Create small talk to build a rapport]

Technology Set-Up [Skip if respondent has automatically turned on their webcam]

If respondent hasn’t turned out their camera, here are instructions on how to them do it. Also, take this time to turn on your camera if you haven’t yet.

Do you have a video camera that we could use? [If no, move on. If yes…]

Could you turn that on for me? I’ve found that having the video on and the ability to see each other is really helpful during interviews.

Make sure respondent is completely signed into GTM and not just on the phone. (You can tell if respondent has both a phone and camera icon next to their name. If there is only a phone, have them click on the GTM link that was provided to fully sign in).
Turning on the webcam:

Respondent needs to click the “camera” button in the top right corner. It will be the last in a series of three buttons – a phone, a television/screen, and a camera recorder.
They need to click on that last button.
Camera should automatically turn on.

If they can’t see you, have them click on the right click on the tab below the camera button > the three dots below that > click on “Show all webcams”

[This is also when you can confirm that the respondent received the CRDC Offenses Section Handout. They do not need to have it open at this moment but will soon.]

Interview Introduction

We are conducting interviews to learn more about the process districts go through to fill out the Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC). We have been hired by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) to administer these interviews, with the goal of learning about your experiences with reporting information focused on school crime incidents that are required to be filled out as part of CRDC. As you may or may not be aware, similar questions are also included on the School Survey on Crime and Safety (SSOCS), another Department of Education data collection, which is completed at the school level. We are exploring the context around the reporting of incident items on CRDC and SSOCS with the goal of removing the questions from one of these surveys and reducing burden on responding schools and districts.

You were chosen to participate in this interview because your district provided crime incident data for the 2017–18 CRDC and one or more schools in your district also provided similar data on SSOCS. As a district representative, we value your opinion and would like to hear your perspective on providing counts of crime incidents at schools in your district on surveys such as CRDC. We recognize that everyone has different experiences or procedures when it comes to reporting information for CRDC and want to stress that there are no right or wrong answers. Your responses during this interview will be used by NCES to gain a better understanding of the process involved for respondents to report crime incidents on CRDC and SSOCS. Nothing you say will change any previous responses you have provided as part of CRDC. This is not an evaluation of your answers on CRDC.

[IF NO, DO NOT RECORD, you will need to rely on notetaking] Ok, I will not turn on the audio recorder.

[If yes, turn on the GTM recording which is at the bottom of the GTM window]

If at any time you want to skip a question or stop, just let me know. Any additional questions before we start?

Probes that could be helpful in prompting respondent to elaborate:

What are you thinking about?
Please tell me what you are thinking.
Can you tell me more about that?
What are you planning to do next?
Is there anything else you can do?

STEP 2: INTERVIEW

Background Questions:

Before we get started, we have a few background questions about your role in your district and your experience with responding to CRDC.

How would you describe your overall role in the district?
What are your day-to-day activities?
How would you describe your responsibilities for responding to CRDC?
Did you complete any special training or certification for CRDC data collection and entry?
How long have you been involved with CRDC?
When we spoke previously you indicated that you had the primary responsibility for completing the 2017–18 CRDC data collection section on counts of crime incidents that occurred at schools in your district. Is this correct?
1. If yes, were there other staff who assisted you in completing the Offenses Section – the section reporting counts of crime incidents that occurred at schools in your district?
  1. If yes, what positions did these staff hold at the time?
2. If no, proceed to the questions on the last page of the protocol for situations where the respondent was not primarily responsible for completing CRDC.
Are you familiar with the School Survey on Crime and Safety, also known as SSOCS? (If they just say yes, ask them to elaborate.)

2017–18 Incident Count Questions

Great! For these next few questions, we will discuss a specific question on the 2017–18 CRDC, Offenses Section: Offenses. [Confirm that respondent has the CRDC Offenses Section Handout in front of them.] The question marked OFFN-1 discusses the number of incidents of varying offenses that have taken place at schools. Please take a few moments to read this question fully. [Give R time to look over the section.]

For these next few questions, please try to recall the process of collecting the data and answering the 2017–18 CRDC, in particular for filling out the incident counts requested in the Offenses Section.

How well do you remember that process?
Could you describe it for me?

[If respondent isn’t sure how to begin…] Start with the communication (email or mail) you received about the CRDC data collection before the submission period. Who was the communication addressed to? Did you look out for it? How did you know when you were supposed to submit the data?

Looking at the Offenses Section, were there any words in these questions that you didn’t recognize or were not sure about? Which ones?
Were there any instructions in these questions that you found confusing or difficult to follow? Which ones?
How did you gather the information required to answer these incident count items?

If respondent has already answered the following questions during the process of answering the previous questions, skip ahead.

Are these data kept by your district a record of every year?
Does your district track this information in a database or another record keeping system?
Did you have any quality assurance or review processes in place to verify the counts you received from the schools?
Did you have any quality assurance or review processes in place to verify the data you were submitting for the CRDC data collection?

If yes, please tell me about them.

Did you encounter any specific issues or challenges with these particular elements of the data collection?

If yes, can you give us some examples of these issues/challenges?
Which incident counts were easy to provide? Which were difficult to provide?

[If the school provided consent to share their information and the district respondent signed the NDA] At this time, you should refer to the CRDC Incidents Count Sheet – With School Info for questions 18 through 25 which will ask about the 2017–18 Specific CRDC Item Data Collection and 2017–18 SSOCS Comparison. Do not share this sheet with the respondent.

[If the school did not provide consent to share their information OR the district respondent did not sign the NDA] At this time, you should refer to the CRDC Incidents Count Sheet – No School Info for questions 18 through 25 which will ask about the 2017–18 Specific CRDC Item Data Collection. Do not share this sheet with the respondent.

When you finish going through the CRDC Incidents Count Sheet with the respondent, return to the protocol questions below:

Current Data Collection Process:

Thank you for that information. Now I’d like to ask you a few general questions about the processes your district currently has in place to record and report these kinds of incident data on CRDC.

If you had to answer this question today, would the process be different than it was in 2017–18?

If yes, describe that process for me.
[Suggested probe] Can you tell me more about that?

How does your district currently collect and record data related to the incident counts?

[Suggested probe] Can you tell me more about this system/process?

If respondent has already answered the following questions during the process of answering the previous questions, skip ahead.

Have there been any changes in the process since you submitted data for 2017–18?

If yes, what were the changes?

Are schools required to provide this information to the district?

[Suggested probe] Can you tell me more about this system/process?

Conclusion

We’re almost at the end of our interview and only have a few more questions

Is there anything else you would like to say about CRDC data collection or the incident count question that you haven’t mentioned yet?
What is the best address to which to send your gift card?

Street:

City:

State:

Zip:

For situations where the respondent was NOT primarily responsible for completing CRDC

My apologies! I was under the impression from our prior conversation that you were primarily responsible for completing the 2017–18 CRDC questionnaire. [Pause and see if respondent offers an explanation.]

Who was involved in that process? Are they still employed with this district?
1. If yes, do you have their contact information?

Thank you so much! I appreciate your time today.

[END OF INTERVIEW; do not mention the gift card; let Sidney/Jana/Korantema know what happened ASAP]

CRDC Incident Count Sheet – WITH SCHOOL INFORMATION

DO NOT SHARE WITH RESPONDENT

[FORMATTING NOTE: All highlighted portions are examples; data will be pulled from the SSOCS & CRDC data files and will be linked to each other automatically generating the entire document.]

School: [SCHOOL NAME]________________________________________________

District: ________________________________________________

CRDC Process Questions

[FORMATTING NOTE: The incident types discussed in questions 18, 20, and 22 will be consistent across all interviews and chosen based on frequency across all schools.]

Incident Type	CRDC Count
Rape or attempted rape	1
Homicide	0
Shooting	0

Based on your district’s response to the 2017–18 CRDC, 1 incident(s) of rape or attempted rape was reported for [SCHOOL NAME]. Could you tell me how you arrived at this answer?

[Suggested probe] Tell me more about why you answered 1.
[Suggested probe] Can you tell me more about that?

Did your process for reporting counts of homicide and shootings differ from that you took to report rape or attempted rape?

If yes: Could you describe how the process differed in reporting these different types of incidents?

-----------------------

Incident Type	CRDC Count
Sexual assault	1
Robbery with a weapon	2
Robbery without a weapon	17
Physical attack or fight with a weapon	8
Threat of physical attack or fight with a weapon	12

Based on your district’s response to the 2017–18 CRDC, 8 incident(s) of physical attacks or fights with a weapon were reported for [SCHOOL NAME]. Could you tell me how you arrived at this answer?

[Suggested probe] Tell me more about why you answered 8.
[Suggested probe] Can you tell me more about that?

Did your process for reporting counts of sexual assault, robbery with or without a weapon, or threat of physical attack or fight with a weapon differ from the process that you took to report physical attack or fight with a weapon?

If yes: Could you describe how the process differed in reporting these different types of incidents?

-----------------------

Incident Type	CRDC Count
Physical attack or fight without a weapon	68
Threat of physical attack without a weapon	92
Possession of a firearm or explosive device	2

Based on your district’s response to the 2017–18 CRDC, 68 incident(s) of threat of physical attack without a weapon were reported for [SCHOOL NAME]. Could you tell me how you arrived at this answer?

[Suggested probe] Tell me more about why you answered 68.
[Suggested probe] Can you tell me more about that?

Did your process for reporting counts of physical attack or fight without a weapon or possession of a firearm or explosive device differ from the process that you took to report threat of physical attack without a weapon?

If yes: Could you describe how the process differed in reporting these different types of incidents?

SSOCS Comparison

[FORMATTING NOTE: This incident type discussed in this section will not be consistent across schools. Instead it will be dependent upon the incident type that is chosen for that school.]

[SCHOOL NAME] also reported counts of crime incidents on SSOCS for the same 2017–18 school year. In reviewing their response for the number of incidents of rape or attempted rape, we found that the school reported a higher/lower/the same number of incidents on SSOCS than the district reported on CRDC.

IF LOWER/HIGHER: What are some reasons you can think of for why the SSOCS count may differ from what was reported for CRDC?

IF EQUAL: What are some reasons you can think of for why the SSOCS count may be the same as that reported for CRDC?

Do you know how the district acquires counts of incidents from [SCHOOL NAME]?
1. [Suggested probe] Could you tell me more about that process?

CRDC Incident Count Sheet – NO SCHOOL INFORMATION

DO NOT SHARE WITH RESPONDENT

District: ________________________________________________

CRDC Process Questions

[FORMATTING NOTE: The incident types discussed in questions 18, 20, and 22 will be consistent across all interviews and chosen based on frequency across all schools.]

Based on your district’s response to the 2017–18 CRDC for a typical school in your district, could you tell me how you answered the rape or attempted rape incident count question?

[Suggested probe] Can you tell me more about that?
[Suggested probe] Would this process be different for any schools in your district?

Did your process for reporting counts of homicide and shootings differ from that you took to report rape or attempted rape?

If yes: Could you describe how the process differed in reporting these different types of incidents?

Based on your district’s response to the 2017–18 CRDC for a typical school in your district, could you tell me how you answered the physical attacks or fights with a weapon incident count question?
1. [Suggested probe] Can you tell me more about that?
2. [Suggested probe] Would this process be different for any schools in your district?

Did your process for reporting counts of sexual assault, robbery with or without a weapon, or threat of physical attack or fight with a weapon differ from the process that you took to report physical attack or fight with a weapon?

If yes: Could you describe how the process differed in reporting these different types of incidents?

Based on your district’s response to the 2017–18 CRDC for a typical school in your district, could you tell me how you answered the threat of physical attack without a weapon incident count question?
1. [Suggested probe] Can you tell me more about that?
2. [Suggested probe] Would this process be different for any schools in your district?

Did your process for reporting counts of physical attack or fight without a weapon or possession of a firearm or explosive device differ from the process that you took to report threat of physical attack without a weapon?

If yes: Could you describe how the process differed in reporting these different types of incidents?

SSOCS Comparison

Schools in your district also reported counts of crime incidents on SSOCS for the same 2017–18 school year. In some instances, incident counts reported by schools on SSOCS may be higher or lower than those the district reported on CRDC.

What are some reasons you can think of for why these counts may differ from what was reported for CRDC?

Do you know how most schools in your district send counts of incidents to your district?

[Suggested probe] Could you tell me more about that process?
[Suggested probe] Would this process be different for any schools in your district?

Revised Interview Protocols for Phase 2

SSOCS Interview Protocol

School:
District:
State:
Respondent’s Name:
Date:
Interviewers:

Consent Form:

☐Signed copy received

☐ Waiting on signed copy

Materials:

Protocol
SSOCS Incidents Section Handout (respondent should have as well)
SSOCS Incident Counts Sheet (not shared with respondent)

STEP 1: WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION SCRIPT

Hello, my name is <your name> and I work for American Institutes for Research. It’s nice to meet you, and thanks for talking to us today. [Introduce anyone else that is on the call.]

[Create small talk to build a rapport]

Technology Set-Up [Skip if respondent has automatically turned on their webcam]

If respondent hasn’t turned out their camera, here are instructions on how to them do it. Also, take this time to turn on your camera if you haven’t yet.

Do you have a video camera that we could use? [If no, move on. If yes…]

Could you turn that on for me? I’ve found that having the video on and the ability to see each other is really helpful during interviews.

Make sure respondent is completely signed into GTM and not just on the phone. (You can tell if respondent has both a phone and camera icon next to their name. If there is only a phone, have them click on the GTM link that was provided to fully sign in).
Turning on the webcam:

Respondent needs to click the “camera” button in the top right corner. It will be the last in a series of three buttons – a phone, a television/screen, and a camera recorder.
They need to click on that last button.
Camera should automatically turn on.

If they can’t see you, have them click on the right click on the tab below the camera button > the three dots below that > click on “Show all webcams”

[This is also when you can confirm that the respondent received the SSOCS Incidents Section Handout. They do not need to have it open at this moment but will soon.]

Interview Introduction

We are conducting interviews to learn more about the process schools go through to fill out the School Survey on Crime and Safety (SSOCS). We have been hired by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) to administer these interviews, with the goal of learning about your experiences with reporting information focused on school crime incidents that are required to be filled out as part of SSOCS. We are exploring the context around the reporting of incident items on SSOCS with the goal of streamlining questions on crime incidents across various federal survey in order to reduce burden on responding schools.

You were chosen to participate in this interview because your school participated in the SSOCS data collection during the 2017–18 school year. As a principal, we value your opinion and would like to hear your perspective on providing counts of crime incidents at your school on surveys such as SSOCS. We recognize that everyone has different experiences or procedures when it comes to reporting information for SSOCS, as well as how school crime and safety incidents are tracked and recorded, and we want to stress that there are no right or wrong answers. Your responses during this interview will be used by NCES to gain a better understanding of the process involved for respondents to report crime incidents on SSOCS. Nothing you say will change any previous responses you have provided as part of SSOCS. This is not an evaluation of your answers on SSOCS.

The interview should take about an hour. I would like to record audio from our conversation to make sure I catch all of the important information you share today and to serve as a back up to the notes taken. This recording will only be used for note-taking purposes, will be stored securely, and will be destroyed after the project is over. Is it okay for me to record you?

[IF NO, DO NOT RECORD, you will need to rely on notetaking] Ok, I will not turn on the audio recorder.

[If yes, turn on the GTM recording which is at the bottom of the GTM window]

If at any time you want to skip a question or stop, just let me know. Any additional questions before we start?

Probes that could be helpful in prompting respondent to elaborate:

What are you thinking about?
Please tell me what you are thinking.
Can you tell me more about that?
What are you planning to do next?
Is there anything else you can do?

STEP 2: INTERVIEW

Background Questions:

Before we get started, we have a few background questions about your role at your school and your experience with SSOCS.

How would you describe your overall role at your school?
What are your day-to-day activities?
Please describe your involvement in school safety and discipline at your school.
Did you complete any special training or certification for data collection and/or data entry procedures for tracking school crime incidents? If so, what was it?
This school participated in the SSOCS data collection during the 2017-18 school year. When we spoke previously you indicated that you had the primary responsibility for completing the section reporting counts of crime incidents that occurred at school. Is this correct?
1. If yes, were there other staff who assisted you in completing the section reporting counts of crime incidents that occurred at your school, and those that were reported to police?
  1. If yes, what positions did these staff hold?”
2. If no, proceed to the questions on the last page of the protocol for situations where the respondent was not primarily responsible for completing SSOCS.
Are you familiar with any other federal surveys that may collect crime incident data? (If yes, ask respondent to elaborate if necessary.)

2017–18 Incident Count Questions

First, we’d like you to try to recall the process of collecting the data and answering the 2017–18 SSOCS, in particular for filling out the incident counts requested in question 30.

How well do you remember that process?
Could you describe it for me?
1. [If respondent isn’t sure how to begin…] Start with the communication (email or mail) you received about the SSOCS data collection before the submission period. Who was the communication addressed to? Did you look out for it? How did you know when you were supposed to submit the data?
Looking at item 30, were there any words in these questions that you didn’t recognize or were not sure about? Which ones?
Were there any instructions in these questions that you found confusing or difficult to follow? Which ones?
How did you gather the information required to answer these incident count items?

If respondent has already answered the following questions during the process of answering the previous questions, skip ahead.

Are these data kept by your school a record of every year?
Does your school track this information in a database or another record keeping system?
Did you have any quality assurance or review processes in place to verify the counts you supplied before submitting them to the SSOCS survey?

If yes, please tell me about them.

Did you encounter any specific issues or challenges with these particular elements of the data collection?

If yes, can you give us some examples of these issues/challenges?
Which incident counts were easy to provide? Which were difficult to provide?

At this time, you should refer to the SSOCS Incidents Count Sheet for questions 16 through 23 which will ask about the 2017–18 Specific Item Data Collection. Do not share this sheet with the respondent.

When you finish going through the SSOCS Incidents Count Sheet with the respondent, return to the protocol questions below:

Current Data Collection Process:

Thank you for that information. Now I’d like to ask you a few general questions about the processes your school currently has in place to record and report these kinds of incident data.

If you had to answer this question today, would the process be different than it was in 2017–18?

If yes, describe that process for me.
[Suggested probe] Can you tell me more about that?

How does your school currently collect and record data related to the incident counts?

[Suggested probe] Can you tell me more about this system/process?

If respondent has already answered the following questions during the process of answering the previous questions, skip ahead.

Do you currently report data on incident counts to your district?

[If yes, suggested probe] Is this required of all schools in your district?
[Suggested probe] Can you tell me more about this system/process?
[Suggested probe] Do you report incidents to the district on a rolling basis as they occur or at periodic intervals (like at the end of the semester or school year)?

Conclusion

We’re almost at the end of our interview and only have a few more questions.

Is there anything else you would like to say about SSOCS data collection or the incident count questions that you haven’t mentioned yet?
What is the best address to which to send your gift card?

Street:

City:

State:

Zip:

For situations where the respondent was NOT primarily responsible for completing SSOCS

Who was involved in that process? Are they still at this school?
1. If yes, can you provide me with their contact information?

Thank you so much! I appreciate your time today.

[END OF INTERVIEW; do not mention the gift card; let Kathryn/Jana/Korantema know what happened ASAP]

SSOCS Incident Count Sheet

DO NOT SHARE WITH RESPONDENT

[FORMATTING NOTE: All highlighted portions are examples; data will be pulled from the SSOCS data files and will be linked to each other automatically generating the entire document.]

School: ________________________________________________

District: ________________________________________________

SSOCS Process Questions

[FORMATTING NOTE: The incident types discussed in questions 16, 18, and 20 will be consistent across all interviews and chosen based on frequency across all schools.]

Incident Type	SSOCS Count
Rape or attempted rape	1
Homicide	0
Shooting	0

Based on your school’s response to the 2017–18 SSOCS, 1 incident(s) of rape or attempted rape was reported for this school. Could you tell me how you arrived at this answer?

[Suggested probe] Tell me more about why you answered 1.
[Suggested probe] Can you tell me more about that?

Did your process for reporting counts of homicide and shootings for this school differ from that you took to report rape or attempted rape?

If yes: Could you describe how the process differed in reporting these different types of incidents?

-----------------------

Incident Type	SSOCS Count
Sexual assault	1
Robbery with a weapon	2
Robbery without a weapon	17
Physical attack or fight with a weapon	8
Threat of physical attack or fight with a weapon	12

Based on your school’s response to the 2017–18 SSOCS, 8 incident(s) of physical attacks or fights with a weapon were reported for this school. Could you tell me how you arrived at this answer?

[Suggested probe] Tell me more about why you answered 8.
[Suggested probe] Can you tell me more about that?

Did your process for reporting counts of sexual assault, robbery with or without a weapon or threat of physical attack or fight with a weapon for this school differ from the process that you took to report physical attack or fight with a weapon?

If yes: Could you describe how the process differed in reporting these different types of incidents?

-----------------------

Incident Type	SSOCS Count
Physical attack or fight without a weapon	68
Threat of physical attack without a weapon	92
Possession of a firearm or explosive device	2

Based on your school’s response to the 2017–18 SSOCS, 68 incident(s) of threat of physical attack without a weapon were reported for this school. Could you tell me how you arrived at this answer?

[Suggested probe] Tell me more about why you answered 68.
[Suggested probe] Can you tell me more about that?

Did your process for reporting counts of physical attack or fight without a weapon or possession of a firearm or explosive device for this school differ from the process that you took to report threat of physical attack without a weapon?

If yes: Could you describe how the process differed in reporting these different types of incidents?

-----------------------

Other Federal Survey Comparison

Your district may also report counts of crime incidents on other federal surveys. In some instances, incident counts reported may vary from those the school reported on SSOCS.

Do you know how counts of incidents from your district are aggregated?
1. [Suggested probe] Could you tell me more about that process?
What are some reasons you can think of for why counts reported by the district may differ from what was reported by schools on SSOCS?

CRDC Interview Protocol

School:
District:
State:
Respondent’s Name:
Date:
Interviewers:

Consent Form:

☐Signed copy received

☐ Waiting on signed copy

Materials:

Protocol
CRDC Offenses Section Handout (respondent should have as well)
CRDC Incident Counts Sheet (not shared with district)

STEP 1: WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION SCRIPT

Hello, my name is <your name> and I work for American Institutes for Research. It’s nice to meet you, and thanks for talking to us today. [Introduce anyone else that is on the call.]

[Create small talk to build a rapport]

Technology Set-Up [Skip if respondent has automatically turned on their webcam]

If respondent hasn’t turned out their camera, here are instructions on how to them do it. Also, take this time to turn on your camera if you haven’t yet.

Do you have a video camera that we could use? [If no, move on. If yes…]

Could you turn that on for me? I’ve found that having the video on and the ability to see each other is really helpful during interviews.

Make sure respondent is completely signed into GTM and not just on the phone. (You can tell if respondent has both a phone and camera icon next to their name. If there is only a phone, have them click on the GTM link that was provided to fully sign in).
Turning on the webcam:

Respondent needs to click the “camera” button in the top right corner. It will be the last in a series of three buttons – a phone, a television/screen, and a camera recorder.
They need to click on that last button.
Camera should automatically turn on.

If they can’t see you, have them click on the right click on the tab below the camera button > the three dots below that > click on “Show all webcams”

[This is also when you can confirm that the respondent received the CRDC Offenses Section Handout. They do not need to have it open at this moment but will soon.]

Interview Introduction

We are conducting interviews to learn more about the process districts go through to fill out the Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC). We have been hired by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) to administer these interviews, with the goal of learning about your experiences with reporting information focused on school crime incidents that are required to be filled out as part of CRDC. We are exploring the context around the reporting of incident items on CRDC with the goal of streamlining questions on crime incidents across various federal survey in order to reduce burden on responding schools and districts.

You were chosen to participate in this interview because your district provided crime incident data for the 2017–18 CRDC. As a district representative, we value your opinion and would like to hear your perspective on providing counts of crime incidents at schools in your district on surveys such as CRDC. We recognize that everyone has different experiences or procedures when it comes to reporting information for CRDC and want to stress that there are no right or wrong answers. Your responses during this interview will be used by NCES to gain a better understanding of the process involved for respondents to report crime incidents on CRDC. Nothing you say will change any previous responses you have provided as part of CRDC. This is not an evaluation of your answers on CRDC.

[IF NO, DO NOT RECORD, you will need to rely on notetaking] Ok, I will not turn on the audio recorder.

[If yes, turn on the GTM recording which is at the bottom of the GTM window]

If at any time you want to skip a question or stop, just let me know. Any additional questions before we start?

Probes that could be helpful in prompting respondent to elaborate:

What are you thinking about?
Please tell me what you are thinking.
Can you tell me more about that?
What are you planning to do next?
Is there anything else you can do?

STEP 2: INTERVIEW

Background Questions:

Before we get started, we have a few background questions about your role in your district and your experience with responding to CRDC.

How would you describe your overall role in the district?
What are your day-to-day activities?
How would you describe your responsibilities for responding to CRDC?
Did you complete any special training or certification for CRDC data collection and entry?
How long have you been involved with CRDC?
When we spoke previously you indicated that you had the primary responsibility for completing the 2017–18 CRDC data collection section on counts of crime incidents that occurred at schools in your district. Is this correct?
1. If yes, were there other staff who assisted you in completing the Offenses Section – the section reporting counts of crime incidents that occurred at schools in your district?
  1. If yes, what positions did these staff hold at the time?
2. If no, proceed to the questions on the last page of the protocol for situations where the respondent was not primarily responsible for completing CRDC.
Are you familiar with any other federal surveys that may collect crime incident data? (If they just say yes, ask them to elaborate.)

2017–18 Incident Count Questions

How well do you remember that process?
Could you describe it for me?

[If respondent isn’t sure how to begin…] Start with the communication (email or mail) you received about the CRDC data collection before the submission period. Who was the communication addressed to? Did you look out for it? How did you know when you were supposed to submit the data?

Looking at the Offenses Section, were there any words in these questions that you didn’t recognize or were not sure about? Which ones?
Were there any instructions in these questions that you found confusing or difficult to follow? Which ones?
How did you gather the information required to answer these incident count items?

If respondent has already answered the following questions during the process of answering the previous questions, skip ahead.

Are schools required to provide this information to the district?

[Suggested probe] Can you tell me more about this system/process?
[Suggested probe] Do schools report incidents to the district on a rolling basis as they occur or at periodic intervals (like at the end of the semester or school year)?

Are these data kept by your district a record of every year?
Does your district track this information in a database or another record keeping system?
Did you have any quality assurance or review processes in place to verify the counts you received from the schools?
Did you have any quality assurance or review processes in place to verify the data you were submitting for the CRDC data collection?

If yes, please tell me about them.

Did you encounter any specific issues or challenges with these particular elements of the data collection?

If yes, can you give us some examples of these issues/challenges?
Which incident counts were easy to provide? Which were difficult to provide?

At this time, you should refer to the CRDC Incidents Count Sheet for questions 19 through 26 which will ask about the 2017–18 Specific CRDC Item Data Collection. Do not share this sheet with the respondent.

When you finish going through the CRDC Incidents Count Sheet with the respondent, return to the protocol questions below:

Current Data Collection Process:

Thank you for that information. Now I’d like to ask you a few general questions about the processes your district currently has in place to record and report these kinds of incident data on CRDC.

If you had to answer this question today, would the process be different than it was in 2017–18?

If yes, describe that process for me.
[Suggested probe] Can you tell me more about that?

How does your district currently collect and record data related to the incident counts?

[Suggested probe] Can you tell me more about this system/process?

If respondent has already answered the following questions during the process of answering the previous questions, skip ahead.

Have there been any changes in the process since you submitted data for 2017–18?

If yes, what were the changes?

Conclusion

We’re almost at the end of our interview and only have a few more questions

Is there anything else you would like to say about CRDC data collection or the incident count question that you haven’t mentioned yet?
What is the best address to which to send your gift card?

Street:

City:

State:

Zip:

For situations where the respondent was NOT primarily responsible for completing CRDC

Who was involved in that process? Are they still employed with this district?
1. If yes, can you provide me with their contact information?

Thank you so much! I appreciate your time today.

[END OF INTERVIEW; do not mention the gift card; let Kathryn/Jana/Korantema know what happened ASAP]

CRDC Incident Count Sheet

DO NOT SHARE WITH RESPONDENT

District: ________________________________________________

CRDC Process Questions

[FORMATTING NOTE: The incident types discussed in questions 19, 21, and 23 will be consistent across all interviews and chosen based on frequency across all schools.]

Based on your district’s response to the 2017–18 CRDC for a typical school in your district, could you tell me how you answered the rape or attempted rape incident count question?

[Suggested probe] Can you tell me more about that?
[Suggested probe] Would this process be different for any schools in your district?

Did your process for reporting counts of homicide and shootings differ from that you took to report rape or attempted rape?

If yes: Could you describe how the process differed in reporting these different types of incidents?

Based on your district’s response to the 2017–18 CRDC for a typical school in your district, could you tell me how you answered the physical attacks or fights with a weapon incident count question?
1. [Suggested probe] Can you tell me more about that?
2. [Suggested probe] Would this process be different for any schools in your district?

Did your process for reporting counts of sexual assault, robbery with or without a weapon, or threat of physical attack or fight with a weapon differ from the process that you took to report physical attack or fight with a weapon?

If yes: Could you describe how the process differed in reporting these different types of incidents?

Based on your district’s response to the 2017–18 CRDC for a typical school in your district, could you tell me how you answered the threat of physical attack without a weapon incident count question?
1. [Suggested probe] Can you tell me more about that?
2. [Suggested probe] Would this process be different for any schools in your district?

Did your process for reporting counts of physical attack or fight without a weapon or possession of a firearm or explosive device differ from the process that you took to report threat of physical attack without a weapon?

If yes: Could you describe how the process differed in reporting these different types of incidents?

Other Federal Survey Comparison

Schools in your district may also report counts of crime incidents on other federal surveys. In some instances, incident counts reported by schools may vary from those the district reported on the CRDC.

What are some reasons you can think of for why these counts may differ from what was reported on the CRDC?

If respondent has already answered the following questions during the process of answering previous questions, skip ahead.

Do you know how most schools in your district send counts of incidents to your district?

[Suggested probe] Could you tell me more about that process?
[Suggested probe] Would this process be different for any schools in your district?

File Type	application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document
Author	Kaleem, Korantema
File Modified	0000-00-00
File Created	2021-01-14

School Survey of Crime and Safety (SSOCS) Incident Count Check Cognitive Interviews Update

NCES System Clearance for Cognitive, Pilot, and Field Test Studies 2019-2022

Appendix B SSOCS-CRDC Incident Count Cog Lab Protocols