The purpose of this letter is to inform you of our plans to conduct additional research under the generic clearance for questionnaire pretesting research (OMB number 0607-0725). We will be conducting cognitive interviews to test new and revised content of questions and inform future data collection efforts concerning bullying of school age respondents for surveys conducted for the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), the statistical agency for the U.S. Department of Education. This research will inform future collections of the School Crime Supplement which is collected as part of the National Crime Victimization Survey.
The purpose of the research is to test the clarity and effectiveness of several potential survey items related to bullying, whose recent prominence in the news has necessitated research on the best way to collect official statistics on the topic. This research will result in recommendations for how items can best be worded to produce consistent, reliable, and meaningful response data.
Between May 2012 and July 2012, a contractor (ICF International) will conduct 28 face-to-face interviews in two phases. Phase one will consist of cognitive interviews of 16 children aged 12 to 14. Phase two will consist of additional cognitive interviews with revisions made based on the phase one work. Phase two will consist of 12 additional children participating in cognitive interviews. Participants for both phases will be recruited to ensure broad demographic representation. Recruitment will be conducted by phone through a data collection firm, using the firm’s proprietary database of volunteer participants. As part of their participation in that database, all participants will already have agreements with the data collection firm in terms of how their information will be handled and other research procedures.
Participants will be paid $25 for their assistance in this project, with an additional $25 for the participant’s parent or guardian. The interviews will be conducted in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area.
Draft questions and the protocol for the study are attached. All data collection and recruitment protocols for both phases will be approved by ICF’s corporate Institutional Review Board.
Participants will be informed that their response is voluntary and that the information they provide is confidential and will be seen only by employees involved in the research project. Consent forms for both the children and the parents/guardians are attached.
The estimated time for completion of each interview is one hour. Thus, the total estimated burden time for this research is a maximum of 28 hours.
The contact person for questions regarding data collection and statistical aspects of the design of this research is listed below:
Howard R. McGowan
Demographic Surveys Division
Room 7H135
U.S. Census Bureau
Washington, D.C. 20233
301-763-5342
| File Type | application/msword |
| Author | murph031 |
| Last Modified By | demai001 |
| File Modified | 2012-06-25 |
| File Created | 2012-06-25 |