OMB Memo

Generic Information Collection Request: Focus groups with Group Quarters Administrators to Inform Plans for an Internet Self-Response Instrument for Group Quarters residents in the 2030 Census.

Request: The Census Bureau plans to conduct additional research under the pretesting clearance (OMB number 0607-0725). We plan to conduct up to six focus groups with administrators of group quarters. Data from the focus groups will help inform the plans for enumerating residents of group quarters through an online questionnaire for the 2030 Census. Group quarters (GQs) are places where people live or stay in a group living arrangement and which are owned or managed by an entity or organization that provides housing and may also provide services to its residents or clients, (e.g., student or worker housing). We will have basic information about administrators’ opinions on whether their residents would be able and willing to answer the census from a survey conducted in May and June and approved under 0607-0971 on April 16, 2023. From those survey results, we will identify the GQ types where an online questionnaire is feasible for residents.

The current plans for enumerating GQ residents in the 2030 Census include the development of an option to allow residents to complete the decennial census questionnaire via a secure Census Bureau online questionnaire (also known as Internet Self-Response or ISR). GQ residents will receive email invitations and reminders to complete the online census questionnaire. The emails will contain a link to the ISR instrument. GQ administrators will be required to coordinate the ISR option with their residents either by providing email addresses for their residents or by distributing emails with the links to the ISR themselves.

Purpose: The purpose of the focus groups is to gather more information about how best to notify the GQ residents about the online census questionnaire, and how best to communicate with GQ administrators.

Population of Interest: The population of interest is GQ administrators. We will select administrators from the GQ types whose survey results (from the earlier survey approved under a separate OMB submission) indicate that their residents would be willing and able to complete an online survey. Because we have not yet fielded the survey, the focus groups might cover all the GQ types in the survey, including:

• Residential Schools for People with Disabilities

• College/University Student Housing

• Group Homes Intended for Adults

• Residential Treatment Centers for Adults

• Workers’ Group Living Quarters and Job Corps Centers

• Religious Group Quarters

Timeline: We plan to conduct the focus groups in July and August 2023.

Language: The focus group will be in English only.

Focus Group Administration: Focus groups will be 90-minute and conducted virtually through Microsoft Teams. Participants will be emailed a link to the consent form and asked to sign before the focus group. The consent form will be programmed in Qualtrics and is found in Enclosure 1. If the participant has not signed prior to the focus group, we will gain oral consent to record from the participant. The session will be recorded via Snagit 2022. A Census Bureau moderator will follow the protocol outlined in Enclosure 2 and when appropriate show the slides in Enclosure 3 via the share screen option in MS Teams. Besides the moderator and participants, a note taker and other Census Bureau staff working on the GQ program will be observers on the virtual focus group.

Sample: We will conduct up to six focus groups with six to eight GQ administrators in each focus group. This is an opt-in sample.

The possible in-scope GQ types and number of participants are listed in Table 1 below.

Table 1: GQ types and participant numbers for the focus groups

GQ focus group types	Number of participants
Residential Schools for People with Disabilities	6
College/University Student Housing – small colleges	6
College/University Student Housing – large colleges	6
Group Homes Intended for Adults (noncorrectional)	6
Residential Treatment Centers for Adults (noncorrectional)	6
Workers’ Group Living Quarters and Job Corps Centers & Religious Group Quarters	8
Total	38

Recruitment: We will recruit participants from the survey data gathered in May and June 2023, specifically taken from the last question in the survey that asks if the administrators would like to participate in further studies. We will also recruit through contacts identified by the Census Bureau GQ team and through a BOC broadcast to Census Bureau staff. We will call these individuals and ask them to identify the type of GQ for which they are an administrator. Enclosure 4 includes the questions for the screening interview and the BOC recruitment email.

Incentive: Participants will not be provided an incentive for their participation in the focus group.

Burden hours: We estimate that recruiting telephone calls and email to schedule participants will take up to 3 minutes each. We estimate that the focus group will take 90 minutes.

The burden associated with specific tasks is summarized in Table 2. We estimate the total burden for this study to be 58.9 hours.

Table 2: Description of burden hours by task

	Number of participants	Participation time	Total burden hours
Recruiting calls /emails for focus groups	38	3	114 min
Focus group	38	90	3,420 min
Total burden			3,534 min or 58.9 hours

The materials to be used in the current study are listed below:

Enclosure 1: Screening questions, BOC Broadcast recruiting email, and scheduling email

Enclosure 2: Consent form

Enclosure 3: Focus group moderator’s guide

Enclosure 4: Screens to share during focus group

The contact person for questions regarding data collection and statistical aspects of the design of this research is listed below:

Elizabeth Nichols

Center for Behavioral Science Methods

U.S. Census Bureau

Washington, D.C. 20233

(301) 763-1724

[email protected]

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