Initial Email for the Interviews

APPENDIX C – INITIAL NOTIFICATION ON INTERVIEWS

Hello,

We are requesting your participation in an interview regarding NSF’s Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) Broadening Participation in Computing (BPC) Pilot. Westat, an independent research organization, has been contracted by NSF to conduct an evaluation of the CISE BPC Pilots. These interviews, which are being conducted with a sample of 30 CISE projects, are a key component of the evaluation and are designed to gather information directly from PIs and other key personnel about their experiences with developing and implementing their BPC plans.

You are being asked to participate in this interview because you have been the PI (or Co-PI or other key personnel) on a CISE project that required a BPC plan. Specifically, we would like to ask about your experiences on [insert name of project].

The interview should take about 45-60 minutes. Your participation is voluntary, but we hope that you will share your thoughts with us. More details about the interview and next steps are below.

What is the purpose of the interview and what topics will it cover?

As you may know, a survey of PIs with BPC plans was recently administered as part of our evaluation. The purpose of the interviews is to delve more deeply into many of the same topics addressed in the survey, which include:

• Your prior and current experience with efforts to broaden participation in computing

• The development of your BPC plan for [name of project]

• The current status of your BPC activities for [name of project]

• Outcomes that occurred as a result of your BPC work on [name of project]

What will happen to the information provided?

The Westat team will summarize the results from the interviews (i.e., across all 30 projects participating in the study) in a report that will be provided to NSF. While your responses will be identifiable to Westat, the report provided to NSF will only focus on overall results. Westat will not report any individual responses to NSF nor will it release any information about individuals participating in the interviews to anyone outside their organization.

What are next steps?

Please provide some dates and times when you would be able to participate in a 45-60 minute interview, and we will send you a meeting invite for a specific date and time.

[Link to Calendly (meeting scheduling tool) or list of specific dates/times of Westat availability to be provided here]

Our preference is to conduct the interview using Microsoft Teams, but if you have other preferences (e.g., Zoom, etc.), you may indicate that in your response.

Thank you in advance for your cooperation, and we look forward to talking with you. In the meantime, please let us know if you have any questions.