Focus Group template

DOCUMENTATION FOR THE GENERIC CLEARANCE

OF CUSTOMER SERVICE SATISFACTION COLLECTIONS

TITLE OF INFORMATION COLLECTION:

2012 Focus Groups with High School Seniors and Their Parents, Guidance Counselors, and College and University Representatives, Consumer Information Disclosure Requirements

[ ] SURVEY [X] FOCUS GROUP [ ] SOFTWARE USABILITY TESTING

DESCRIPTION OF THIS SPECIFIC COLLECTION

The Higher Education Act of 1965 (HEA), as amended by the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008 (HEOA), includes many disclosure and reporting requirements. The problems faced by consumers are the inaccessibility of information provided by institutions under the HEA and inconsistency in how the institutions provide the required disclosure information to consumers. NCES proposes to conduct four focus groups to learn how institutions currently collect, manage, and disseminate disclosure data and how consumers (i.e., students, parents, and guidance counselors) access the data. The results of these focus groups will be used by the National Postsecondary Education Cooperative (NPEC) to make suggestions to NCES and the Department about tools that could be developed to assist institutions in meeting statutory data disclosure requirements; enhance the quality, consistency, and usability of that data required to be disclosed; and possibly link the new Common Education Data Standards (CEDS) to data disclosure requirements in an effort to help to standardize them. NPEC’s mission is to promote the quality, comparability, and utility of postsecondary data and information that support policy development at the federal, state, and institutional levels. Because data disclosure requirements and data reporting requirements overlap, such resources and information will also help institutions improve the quality of the data they report to the Department.

AMOUNT OF ANY PROPOSED STIPEND OR INCENTIVE

To thank the respondents for their travel to the focus group facility, time, and effort, the four participating students and their parents will receive $100 per pair, and the guidance counselors, and institutional representatives from under-resourced schools, who are often more difficult to recruit due to their schedules, will receive $75.

BURDEN HOUR COMPUTATION (Number of responses (X) estimated response or participation time in minutes (/60) = annual burden hours):

Response Type	# Respondents	# Responses	Burden Minutes per Respondent	Total Burden Hours
Screener	70	70	8	10
Focus Group	35	35	90	53
Total	70	105	-	63

FEDERAL COST: The estimated annual cost to the Federal government is $155,881.

STATISTICAL INFORMATION

The focus groups to be held in Philadelphia, PA, will be held with representatives from 2-year and 4-year postsecondary institutions in the Philadelphia area (focus groups 1 and 2).

The focus groups to be held in Bethesda, MD, will be held with high school seniors and one of their parents for a total of 4 student/parent pairs (focus group 3) and with high school guidance counselors (focus group 4).

REQUESTED APPROVAL DATE: January 21, 2011

NAME OF CONTACT PERSON: Kashka Kubzdela

TELEPHONE NUMBER: 202-502-7411

ED DEPARTMENT, OFFICE: NCES

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