CISResearchSupportingStatemenPartB-2011-03-23

SUPPORTING STATEMENT

U.S. Department of Commerce

U.S. Census Bureau

Census in Schools Focus Groups

OMB Control Number 0607-XXXX

Part B – COLLECTIONS OF INFORMATION EMPLOYING STATISTICAL METHODS

1. Universe and Respondent Selection

Participants for the CIS focus groups will consist of teachers and administrators from primary and secondary schools and will be stratified by three levels of "urbanicity" (urban, suburban, and rural), and two levels of participation in the 2010 census as measured by the Mail-Back rates of the census forms.

School Urbanicity	Mail-Back Rates	Number of Public Schools	Number of Private Schools
Urban	High	51,973	3,031
Urban	Low	9,641	158
Suburban	High	22,416	3,356
Suburban	Low	7,624	254
Rural	High	4,791	664
Rural	Low	5,528	277
Total		101,974	7,740

Within this population, participants will be recruited for the focus group using the following steps:

1. Categorize all census tracts into three groups (high, medium, low) based on the value of the 2010 Hard-to-Count (HTC) score established by the Census Bureau in its planning database;

2. Identify all tracts with a “high” HTC score;

3. Stratify the “high” HTC score tracts from step 2 into six (6) groups according to: (a) their level of urbanicity (Urban, Suburban, Rural) as based on Census Bureau data, and (b) by level of mail-back rate (high, low) of completed 2010 Census forms;

4. Make a random selection of one tract from each of the six strata defined in Step 3; and

5. Locate all public and private schools within the selected tracts —

1. Randomly select schools from each tract and contact each selected school to invite an administrator or teacher to participate in a focus group; and

2. If not enough persons agree to participate in a focus group, pick additional census tracts and select additional schools from which to recruit participants.

One participant for each focus group will be selected from each school. The schools selected may have actively participated in the 2010 CIS program, or they may not have actively participated. Participation is not a pre-requisite to being eligible for selection.

It should be noted that this is qualitative research. The sample of focus group participants will reflect the diversity that exists among the schools to which the Census Bureau mailed CIS materials. However, given that the total number of focus group participants is 90, the sample of persons may not be statistically representative of the universe of schools. For operational feasibility and cost considerations, we may limit Step 4 to a few designated metropolitan areas, such as Washington D.C., New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Atlanta, and Seattle. In qualitative research, representativeness of the underlying population is less important than ensuring a variety of diverse points of view among the select sample members.

The collection has not been conducted previously.

2. Procedures for Collecting Information

This will be a one-time collection of data. The methodology for selecting participants is discussed above in the response to Question 1, under the "CIS Focus Groups" section. Because this is a qualitative data collection and statistical analysis will not be performed on the data, we cannot specify a degree of accuracy needed for the purpose described in this application.

3. Methods to Maximize Response

We will invite 18 individuals to participate in each of the focus groups. Based on our use of Census-supported invitations and follow-up communications with targeted individuals within the organizations, we believe we will obtain over a 80% response rate yielding approximately 15 participants for each focus group. We understand that this effort will not collect data that can be generalized to the population in a statistical sense; our report will include a clear advisory that the data represent only the individuals involved in the focus groups; the data, however, will be useful for evaluating proposals for the design of future iterations of the program..

4. Tests of Procedures or Methods

The contractor performed a pretest of draft CIS questions among four teachers and school administrators selected from CIS participant schools. During an approximately hour-long conversation with each teacher/administrator, we asked their views on the content and value of the data that would be gained by asking these questions. We incorporated their minor suggestions into the attached protocols. The focus group topics for this proposed data collection effort are taken from the teacher/administrator-tested CIS draft questions.

5. Contacts for Statistical Aspects and Data Collection

Dr. Zhiwei Zhang was in charge of the statistical design and the site and participant selections. Dr. Zhang’s contact information is:

Zhiwei Zhang, Ph.D.

Fellow and Chief Managerial Statistician

ICF International

9300 Lee Highway

Fairfax, VA 22031-1207

(Office) 703-934-3638

zzhang@icfi.com

Focus Group and Interview data collection will be supervised by:

Diane Boyd, PhD

Project Manager, Survey and Evaluation Research

ICF International

9300 Lee Highway

Fairfax VA 22031-1207

(Office) 703-934-3721

dboyd@icfi.com

Agency Contact:

Michelle Green

U.S. Census Bureau

4600 Suitland Road

Suitland, MD 20746

(Office) 301-763-6541

Michelle.c.green@census.gov