Supporting Statement B

B. COLLECTION OF INFORMATION EMPLOYING STATISTICAL METHODS

1. There is no sampling for this information collection, as the potential respondent universe for this information collection will be all of the approximately 1500 student exchange participants for each program year. The anticipated response rate for this collection is 60-70%.

Respondents all high school students	Number
Foreign Citizens	1500

2. This information collection will consist of surveys that will be administered to participants from the foreign exchange students on scholarships in the United States. The entire universe of students will be surveyed because the purpose of the questions is to determine whether the students are safe. There is no methodology for stratification, sample selection, or estimation. This information collection will only be conducted once per year as part of this effort.

3. All ECA/PE/C/PY data collection methods are tailored to fit the prevailing political, cultural, safety, security, and accessibility conditions in each country in which participants are located. Successfully contacting and achieving the highest possible response rates are the goals of survey administration. None of the following increase the burden on respondents. Our methods will include:

• Updating Contact Information Prior: Contact information for program participants will be updated through internal Department of State database searches. This information is required at the time of application to the programs and will be checked to ensure that it is accurate prior to the survey being sent.

• Customized Intro: Customized introductory emails will be sent at the start of survey administration to encourage respondent cooperation. The email will inform potential respondents about the evaluation, and explain that the survey is voluntary.

• Informing the Grantee Organizations Prior: The grantee organizations will be informed prior to the survey being sent to participants and will be provided with a copy of the survey in the case that questions arise from the participants.

• English language: The participants are foreign citizens who must have a sufficient level of English to study at US high schools.

• Non-Response and Reminders: A limited number of follow-up reminders will be sent periodically to non-respondents to encourage them to respond.

Using such methods as listed above has in our previous experiences increased response rates.

Additionally, the data collected is only representative of the evaluation’s respondents and therefore all analysis of results and future reports will be clearly linked to only the universe that was surveyed.

4. Pre-testing the surveys is extremely useful for clarifying instructions and questions, refining the response categories, as well as ensuring clarity, brevity, relevance, user-friendliness, understandability, and sensitivity to a respondent’s culture. This in turn will allow minimum burden to respondents and encourage them to complete their survey. The survey was pre-tested using 5 current/past participants via e-mail. This will be done every year that the survey is used. The purpose of this series of interviews was to assist with development of survey questions and appropriate response categories.

The purpose of these voluntary and confidential e-mails was to get enough information about the respondents’ comprehension and preparation of a response to assess whether they understood the questions and responded as intended. A secondary goal of this exercise was to garner information to improve the construction and administration of the questions. Individual questions were tested for clarity, relevance and comprehensibility. Typical probes in this research included questions such as: How easy or difficult was it to respond to this survey? Did you have difficulty with the meaning of any of the questions? What, if anything, was confusing? Did these response categories make sense to you? Did you have any difficulties answering this question? The information and feedback from the respondents were used to refine the survey instrument, identify additional response categories, and pinpoint potential changes needed to make the instrument more precise in its language and meaning for the broader group of target respondents.

5. The ECA/PE/C/PY individual managing this survey is Tiffany Parkes-Moscova 202-632-9359.