The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) seeks renewal of this generic data collection development clearance to allow us to use samples of more than nine participants in applying methods useful for identifying data collection material and procedural problems, and pretesting questions and procedures. This will allow for identification of solutions and measuring the relative effectiveness of alternative solutions and for identification of appropriate questions to meet the intended purposes and uses of data collection efforts.
The ACF Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation (OPRE) studies ACF programs, and the populations they serve, through rigorous research and evaluation projects. These include evaluations of existing programs, evaluations of innovative approaches to helping low-income children and families, research syntheses and descriptive and exploratory studies. This umbrella generic was originally written and has been used for pretesting research and evaluation data collection efforts primarily by OPRE.
ACF program offices also collect data for a variety of purposes including but not limited to performance reporting and monitoring of funding recipients; understanding of the populations served including who they are, what their needs are, and how we can serve them better; program and service improvement feedback; research and evaluation; etc. For this reason, ACF proposes to broaden the scope of this generic to include pretesting of data elements used on information collections that are not specifically for research and evaluation. This could be used to inform a variety of data collection efforts in ACF to allow for consistent data requests across program offices that are high quality and appropriate for program office needs and for respondents who represent ACF program populations.
This generic clearance will continue to allow us to identify if and when an information collection may be simplified for respondents, respondent burden may be reduced, among other possible improvements. The work completed under this generic is intended to be informative in nature; the studies may be iterative, as variation in questions or procedures are proposed, evaluated, and retested. The pretesting of data collection materials is necessary to improve future ACF information collections, resulting in higher quality data with the best possible utility for the government and its stakeholders, when appropriate. The core methodology and target populations will be consistent and burden caps and token of appreciation structure are proposed in this request.
To reflect the described updates, this request includes updates to the title of the request, overarching description, and burden estimates. We are also requesting an extension for information collections that are currently approved under this generic and still ongoing.
US Code:
42 USC 1310
Name of Law: Social Security Act
This request is to renew the use of the ACF generic clearance for another three years with revisions to broaden scope. The overarching description and the burden estimates have been updated to reflect this change.
On behalf of this Federal agency, I certify that the collection of information encompassed by this request complies with 5 CFR 1320.9 and the related provisions of 5 CFR 1320.8(b)(3).
The following is a summary of the topics, regarding the proposed collection of information, that the certification covers:
(i) Why the information is being collected;
(ii) Use of information;
(iii) Burden estimate;
(iv) Nature of response (voluntary, required for a benefit, or mandatory);
(v) Nature and extent of confidentiality; and
(vi) Need to display currently valid OMB control number;
If you are unable to certify compliance with any of these provisions, identify the item by leaving the box unchecked and explain the reason in the Supporting Statement.
Attachment A -Use of Pretesting Generic Clearance (0970-0355) – 2021-2024.docx
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