NonSub Change - Masking Assessment Items in Instrument 18

To: Jordan Cohen

Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA)

Office of Management and Budget (OMB)

From: Nicole Constance and Lisa Zingman

Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation (OPRE)

Administration for Children and Families (ACF)

Date: May 12, 2021

Subject: NonSubstantive Change Request – National and Tribal Evaluation of the 2^nd Generation of the Health Profession Opportunity Grants (HPOG 2.0) (OMB # 0970-0462)

This memo requests approval of a non-substantive change to one of the approved information collections for the National and Tribal Evaluation of the 2^nd Generation of the Health Profession Opportunity Grants (HPOG 2.0) (OMB # 0970-0462).

Background

Between August 2015 and June 2020, OMB approved several information collection instruments, procedures, and supporting materials in support of the HPOG 2.0 National and Tribal Evaluations. These include baseline data collection from HPOG 2.0 National and Tribal Evaluation study participants, data collection protocols and procedures for the HPOG 2.0 Tribal Evaluation, a Short-term Follow-up Survey as part of the National Evaluation’s impact study, and several instruments in support of the National Evaluation, including a phone-based skills assessment pilot instrument and an Intermediate Follow-up Survey to support the HPOG 2.0 National Evaluation impact study.

In June 2020, OMB approved Instrument 18, Intermediate Follow-up Survey for the National Evaluation Impact Study, with final revisions to one of the sections, Section J. This instrument, and specifically Section J, contains a module developed to assess HPOG 2.0 participant literacy and numeracy skills by telephone. Since this is an assessment, publishing the items could risk their future utility.

Overview of Requested Changes

This request seeks approval for a minor change to Instrument 18, Intermediate Follow-up Survey. The Section J module contains 11 numeracy and 11 literacy items. ACF seeks permission to mask the specific items in this module in the publicly available version of the instrument. This is standard practice with assessments since, as noted above, publishing the items could risk their future utility. The inability to mask these items could jeopardize their future use in subsequent work on HPOG 2.0 or other related ACF studies. The requested changes only require the replacement of the June 2020 version of Instrument 18 with the revised version with Section J masked.