Formative Data Collection (OMB 0970-0356)
Supporting Statement Part B for OMB Approval
Measurement Development: Quality of Family-Provider Relationships in Early Care and Education
A total of nine focus groups will be conducted with early care and education providers and parents of children ages birth to 5; each group will include nine participants. There will be four focus groups with early care and education providers and five groups with parents (see Table A.1).
We will use a recruitment matrix that includes quotas (the maximum number of participants with particular characteristics that we will accept into the sample). Once quotas are filled, no more volunteers with characteristics of the filled quota will be accepted. This strategy will ensure sample diversity and will help us narrow the field of voulunteers.
Eureka Facts, a marketing research firm with extensive experience recruiting study participants, will aid Child Trends (project subcontractor) in the recruitment of focus group participants. Specifically, Child Trends and Eureka Facts will recruit participants, determine participants’ study eligibility and assign participants to a focus group. Participants will be recruited from different communities, programs and care facilities in the Washington, D.C., and Chicago, Illinois, metropolitan areas. Early care and education providers will be recruited in several ways including: (1) from listservs of family-based care providers generated by targeted localities; (2) from website (e.g., Craigslist) and newspaper ads; (3) from study ads posted in strategic places in the community; and (4) from centers, programs, and family-based providers identified from lists compiled by localities and child care referral programs. Programs that are identified from provider lists will be contacted via phone to ascertain their interest in assisting with the study. The study will be briefly described and we will ask for the programs’ assistance in recruiting parents and providers from their center/program. If permission is given, study fliers will be posted and announcements will be conducted to inform potential participants about the study and how to contact the study center to obtain more information about the study as well as to establish study eligibility. Parents will be recruited from community-based centers, early education and Head Start programs, from study ads posted in the community, from website (e.g., Craigslist) and newspaper ads, and from on-the-ground recruitment (handing out flyers and describing the study to potential participants).
A brief screener interview will be conducted with those who express an interest in participating in the focus groups to determine their eligibility for the study. The parent screener will identify those who (1) have at least one child aged birth to five years old in a non-parental early care and education arrangement, and (2) whose family is from a low-income household. The early care and education (ECE) provider screener will identify those who (1) provide early care and education services in a family-based, center-based, Head Start, or pre-K program to children ages birth to five years. Additionally, other questions will be included in the ECE screener instrument, such as job title and length of tenure, in order to ensure that teachers, aides and assistants are included as well as those with differing levels of experience. Questions about the level and frequency of communication between parents and providers will also be included to ensure that we have parents and providers with varying levels of engagement. If the potential participant qualifies for the study, he/she will be informed of the date/week of his/her focus group and, if they agree to participate, will be scheduled to take part in the focus group. Recruited participants will receive an email or letter (via air mail) thanking them for agreeing to be part of the study along with the date, time and location of the focus group. We will also include directions and a map of the area. Recruited participants will also receive a reminder call and/or text the day before the focus group. These procedures have been found to minimize the number of cancellations and no-shows. Eureka Facts will follow the same procedures as Child Trends to maintain the confidentiality of identifiable data (see answer to question A.10).
Each focus group will be approximately 2 hours long; the screener interviews will average 5 minutes for ineligible participants and 12 minutes for eligible participants. Reminder calls for eligible, scheduled participants will average 2 minutes (see Supporting Statement Part A). Focus groups will be conducted at Child Trends when possible or at meeting rooms in community centers.
To maximize response rates, Child Trends project staff will conduct focus groups during hours most convenient for parents and early care and education providers (e.g., evenings, weekends).
The proposed procedures have been successfully applied in other similar studies conducted by Child Trends, and there are no plans to test the procedures.
The team is led by Drs. Lina Guzman and Nikki Forry, co-principal investigators; Drs. Toni Porter and Juliet Bromer, senior substantive consultants; Dr. Selma Caal, focus group co-moderator; Manica Ramos, qualitative analyst; and Katherine Rodrigues, research assistant. Additional staff consulted at Westat (prime contractor) include Dr. Christine Nord, project director.
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| File Type | application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document |
| Author | jwest |
| File Modified | 0000-00-00 |
| File Created | 2021-02-02 |