1024-0224 NPS Programmatic Review Process - CASA

NPS Form 10-201 (Rev. 09/2016) OMB Control No. 1024-0224

National Park Service Expiration Date May 31, 2019

PROGRAMMATIC REVIEW AND CLEARANCE PROCESS

FOR NPS-SPONSORED PUBLIC SURVEYS

The scope of the Programmatic Review and Clearance Process for NPS-Sponsored Public Surveys is limited and will only include individual surveys of park visitors, potential park visitors, and residents of communities near parks. Use of the programmatic review will be limited to non-controversial surveys of park visitors, potential park visitors, and/or residents of communities near parks that are not likely to include topics of significant interest in the review process. Additionally, this process is limited to non-controversial information collections that do not attract attention to significant, sensitive, or political issues. Examples of significant, sensitive, or political issues include: seeking opinions regarding political figures; obtaining citizen feedback related to high-visibility or high-impact issues like the reintroduction of wolves in Yellowstone National Park, the delisting of specific Endangered Species, or drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

SUBMISSION DATE: January 21, 2021

PROJECT TITLE: Castillo de San Marcos Visitor Experience and Community Study

ABSTRACT: (not to exceed 150 words)

This proposed study will consist of up to four focus group meetings intending to provide a better understanding of current connections between Castillo de San Marcos National Monument (CASA) and members of the local Latinx/Hispanic community. The emphasis will be to gain insights on future opportunities for CASA to better serve members of the local Latinx/Hispanic community and develop strong and lasting relationships. Up to 40 residents of the Latinx/Hispanic community in St. Johns County, FL will be invited to participate in the focus groups. The main objective is to collect data to help CASA strengthen relationships with the local Latinx/Hispanic community by improving both existing and future services, including interpretive and educational programming and outreach materials, and understanding what actions or amenities are necessary to encourage members of this community to visit and engage with CASA.

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR CONTACT INFORMATION:

Name: Steve Lawson Title: Director, Public Lands Planning and Management

Affiliation: Resource Systems Group, Inc. (RSG) Phone: 802-295-4999

Address: 55 Railroad Row White River Junction, VT 05001

Email: steve.lawson@rsginc.com

PARK OR PROGRAM LIAISON CONTACT INFORMATION:

Name: Steve Roberts Title: Chief of Interpretation and Education

Affiliation: Castillo de San Marcos National Monument Phone: 904-829-6506

Address: 1 South Castillo Drive St. Augustine, FL 32084

Email: steven_j_roberts@nps.gov

PROJECT INFORMATION:

Where will the collection take place? Castillo de San Marcos National Monument (CASA)

Sampling Period Start Date: February 8, 2018 Sampling Period End Date: April 30, 2018

Type of Information Collection Instrument: (Check ALL that Apply)

Mail-Back Questionnaire Face-to-Face Interview Focus Groups

On-Site Questionnaire Telephone Survey

Other (List)      

Will an electronic device be used to collect information? No Yes – Type of Device: audio recording device

SURVEY JUSTIFICATION:

Social science research in support of park planning and management is mandated in the NPS Management Policies 2006 (Section 8.11.1, “Social Science Studies”). The NPS pursues a policy that facilitates social science studies in support of the NPS mission to protect resources and enhance the enjoyment of present and future generations (National Park Service Act of 1916, 38 Stat 535, 16 USC 1, et seq.). NPS policy mandates that social science research will be used to provide an understanding of park visitors, the non-visiting public, gateway communities and regions, and human interactions with park resources. Such studies are needed to provide a scientific basis for park planning and development.

Castillo de San Marcos National Monument (CASA) was originally constructed by the Spanish Empire in 1672 and is located in the city of St. Augustine in St. Johns County, FL. It is the oldest structure in St. Augustine, as well as the oldest masonry fort in the continental United States. The National Park Service Centennial in 2017 gave NPS, and specifically CASA, an opportunity to take a critical look at who is visiting national parks, why they are visiting, and how they could better engage with traditionally underserved communities. CASA park managers have indicated that members of the Latinx/Hispanic community near CASA have a unique connection to CASA, due to their Latin/Spanish heritage and proximity to the National Monument. However, park managers have indicated that they would like to enhance this connection by providing resources and services that better serve local Latinx/Hispanic community needs and encourage members of the community to become engaged stakeholders in the national monument. The main objective of this study is to collect data to help CASA understand these existing connections, as well as examine the way to strengthen the relationships between CASA and the local Latinx/Hispanic community. Efforts are currently underway to improve existing and future services, including interpretive/educational programming and outreach materials. To this point, CASA managers would like to engage members of the local Latinx/Hispanic community in ways that their thoughts, opinions and perspectives can be reflected in the planning process. After consulting with researchers from RSG it was decided that a series of focus groups would be the best approach to gather data that will result in usable qualitative information necessary to understand the experiences, impressions, and needs of residents of the local Latinx/Hispanic community.

Qualitative research methods are typically used when there is a need for an in-depth understanding of underlying reasons and motivations of an issue or problem. Managers and Planners at CASA are very interested in learning what they need to know in order to encourage visitation of members of the Latinx/Hispanic community near CASA, specifically in the St. Johns County, FL, area. The proposed study will examine any constraint or barriers that may affect visitation and discover ways to promote communication efforts that will support strong and lasting relationships between the park and the local Latinx/Hispanic community.

The information collected will provide data that will be used by managers to evaluate and improve:

• Interpretive messaging, programs, and materials based on visitors’ reported impressions and experiences.

• Outreach efforts at CASA and within the local Latinx/Hispanic community.

• Park planning, specifically efforts to enhance the park’s relevance and service to the local Latinx/Hispanic community.

SURVEY METHODOLOGY:

1. Respondent Universe:

The respondent universe for this study will be adults (18 years old and older) who identify as Latinx/Hispanic and reside in the St. Johns County, FL area. According to population estimates provided for 2016 from the U.S. Census, 15,516 individuals living in St. Johns County self-identified as Hispanic or Latino (6.6%). Excluding individuals younger than 18 years old, the respondent universe is estimated to be 12,118 individuals.

2. Sampling Plan / Procedures:

In order to thoroughly explore the perspectives of the Latinx/Hispanic community near CASA, focus group participants will be recruited using flyers and snowballing techniques. This method was determined through input from Latinx/Hispanic community leaders identified by CASA and is supported by previous studies that used a combination of flyer and snowball recruitment methods to recruit similar numbers of participants from Hispanic communities near Saguaro National Park (Le et al. 2013), and African American communities near Congaree National Park (Le et al. 2012). RSG will use this combined method to recruit participants for up to four focus groups, with no more than 10 participants per focus group, resulting in 40 maximum participants. The flyer recruitment method is anticipated to recruit 28 (70%) participants while snowball recruitment is anticipated to recruit the remaining 12 (30%) participants, based on the recruitment ratios presented in previous studies (Gilliss et al. 2001, Dhanani 2002). This ratio is a guide for estimating response and will not be used as a criterion to limit participation. In order to achieve these recruitment targets, flyer-based recruitment will require an estimated 60 responses while snowball recruitment will require an estimated 22 responses, according to the participation rates presented in Gilliss et al. (2001). The information presented in Tables 1 and 2 outlines how these participation and response targets will be achieved using the flyer and snowball recruitment methods described below.

Table 1: Summary of flyer recruitment efforts

Recruitment method	Partner organizations	Reach of organizations	Responses (0.1%*)	Total participation (46%**)
Flyer	40	64,080	64	29
		TARGET:	60	28

* Conservative estimate based on previous work conducted by RSG that reported a response rate of 1-2% for flyer-based recruitment methods.

**Flyer-based participation rate of Mexican/Central American women reported in Gillis et al. 2001.

Table 2: Summary of snowball recruitment efforts

Recruitment method	Type	Responses*	Total participation (55%**)
Snowball	Seed Contact	7	4
	Wave 1	14	8
	TOTAL	21***	12
	TARGET	22	12

* Two nominations provided per response (Miller et al. 2011, Wejnert and Heckathorn 2008).

** Snowball participation rate of Mexican/Central American women reported in Gillis et al. 2001.

*** Although the number of responses is below target, snowball recruitment will still result in 12 participants based on the snowball participation rate of Mexican/Central American women reported in Gillis et al. 2001.

Flyer recruitment techniques are intended to advertise the project and reach as many individuals in the study population as possible. This will be accomplished through two types of recruiting efforts: general advertising and intentional flyer-based recruitment, which will involve contacting individuals at specific organizations to solicit support for the project and gain entry to those organizations and their contact networks. Forty partner organizations were identified for flyer recruitment with input from local community leaders, business owners, and professionals, including the project’s locally-based focus group facilitator. The project’s facilitator estimated that these 40 partner organizations have the combined capacity to reach up to 64,080 individuals based on membership and listserv networks, which range from 10 – 30,000 contacts and average 3,051 contacts per partner organization (Table 1). The combined capacity of the 40 partner organizations is high, and likely includes duplicate members and ineligibles, therefore the estimated response rate is very low (Table 1). Flyer recruitment methods include the following:

General recruitment flyers will be distributed through the networks of 37 partner organizations, including:

• Distributed to local university and community college press offices, area businesses, city libraries, and St. Augustine city calendars,

• 508 compliant and posted on the park’s social media outlets and official website in an accessible location,

• Posted in the offices of St. Johns County schools, community centers, and other family-use locations in the St. Augustine area.

Intentional recruitment will be used to distribute electronic flyers through the networks of the following three partner organizations:

• Leaders of the Catholic church in the St. Augustine area who will be asked to invite members of their congregations,

• Staff in the St. Johns County School District who will be asked to invite students’ families and school staff,

• Personnel at the First Coast Hispanic Chamber of Commerce who will be asked to spread the word to the Hispanic-owned and -operated businesses in the St. Augustine area.

RSG will also use snowball recruitment techniques to recruit participants for up to four focus groups with no more than 10 participants per focus group. The initial seed consists of a list of seven individuals identified by CASA. This list includes Latinx/Hispanic community leaders, business owners, and professionals. According to snowball recruitment methods, each person contacted (via phone or email) will be asked to participate in the focus group and to nominate and provide contact information for up to two additional members of their community who may be eligible and interested in participating in a focus group (Miller et al. 2011, Wejnert and Heckathorn 2008). The initial seed list of seven individuals will produce subsequent waves of nominations until the targets for responses and participants have been reached (Table 2). RSG will contact each round of nominated individuals to ask if they are willing to participate in the focus groups and if they are willing to nominate other members of their community. Recruitment will continue using flyer and snowball techniques until all response and participation targets have been reached and focus group participation is at capacity (Tables 1 and 2).

The process of confirming participants who either express initial interest or are nominated as a potential participation will include the following criteria:

• Eligibility - must be an adult resident of the Latinx/Hispanic community in St. Johns County, FL.

• Availability - Must be able to attend the focus groups during the scheduled date and time and visit CASA prior to their participation in the study

• Interest - must have a desire to actively engage in the topic of the focus group

All confirmed participants will receive a park pass which they will be required to use to visit CASA after they have been confirmed and before they participate in the focus group.

3. Instrument Administration:

After eligibility and availability are confirmed, RSG will follow-up with each participant using their preferred method of communication to provide additional details concerning logistics and requirements prior to attending their scheduled focus group session. One week prior to the focus groups, a reminder will be sent to all confirmed participants with the details of the upcoming focus group. A final reminder will be delivered one day before the focus group.

There will be four focus groups, each lasting no more than two hours and will consist of no more than 10 participants. The focus groups will be convened in a space provided by NPS at CASA and scheduled for four separate meeting times and dates during the sampling period.

Each focus group will be facilitated by a skilled, bilingual facilitator from the local area. The facilitator will use the questions approved for this collection so that the key topics of interest to CASA are covered. The facilitator’s role is to ensure that all participants have an opportunity to be heard throughout the discussion. Each focus group will be audio recorded, transcribed, thematically coded, and analyzed. All responses will remain anonymous and will not be associated with any specific individual in order to protect their identity and privacy. Researchers will debrief after each session to review the content and track any consistent and emerging themes.

4. Expected Response Rate / Confidence Level:

It is estimated that 86 individuals will respond to flyer and snowball recruitment efforts and that a maximum of 40 focus group participants will be confirmed. Similar studies conducted by the University of Idaho’s Park Studies Lab using the same recruitment methods were able to confirm similar numbers of participants from minority populations for park-specific studies (Le et al. 2012; Le et al. 2013).

The purpose of this study is to use qualitative research methods to gain an understanding of the perspectives and opinions of a community that is otherwise unknown by the park, therefore, the results of this study are not intended to be a statistically representative sample of the entire universe of Latinx/Hispanics or all residents. In this case, results will not be used to generalize the findings beyond the participants in the study. Based on a similar study at Saguaro National Park (Le et al. 2013) where 43 members of the local Hispanic community participated in a series of focus groups, it is expected that the estimation of 40 confirmed participants in this study will result in theoretical saturation of perspectives. In addition, Krueger and Casey (2014) suggest that three to four focus groups will generally provide enough data to reach saturation.

5. Strategies for dealing with potential non-response bias:

Individuals who are eligible, but unavailable or not interested will be considered as non-respondents for the purposes of this collection. All non-respondents will be asked the following three non-response bias questions during initial contact:

1. How long have you lived in St. Johns County, FL?

2. Do you enjoy visiting museums or other historic sites during your free time?

3. Have you visited Castillo de San Marcos before? How often?

The information from the non-response bias questions will provide insight about leisure preferences of some community members; it will not be used to document a statistical comparison of participants and non-participants in this study. However, the results will provide additional anecdotal information that may be useful to park managers and planners developing outreach materials to encourage members of the local Latinx/Hispanic community to visit and engage with CASA.

6. Description of any pre-testing and peer review of the methods and/or instrument:

The focus group discussion guide was developed by PhD-level and MS-level NPS research consultants at RSG in collaboration with NPS managers. The questions in the focus group discussion guide map to topic areas in the currently approved NPS Pool of Known Questions. Pretesting was conducted with subject matter experts and Latinx/Hispanic community advisors, and input from these individuals was incorporated into the final focus group discussion guide.

BURDEN ESTIMATES:

To recruit and confirm a maximum of 40 participants, it is estimated that 86 individuals will respond to the flyer and snowball recruitment techniques. Initial contact and screening to confirm eligibility and availability will be conducted via each individual’s preferred method of communication. We estimate that the prescreening or rejection will eliminate 46 individuals which will take less than one minute of their time (we did not calculate the burden for these individuals because the individual time would be considered a de minimus amount per response). We expect that it will take will take up to 7 minutes per person (40 x 7 minutes = 5 hours). Up to 40 individuals will be confirmed as participants and reminded about the upcoming focus groups through their preferred method of communication (40 x 5 minutes = 3 hours). All confirmed participants will be required to spend at least one hour visiting CASA prior to participating in a focus group (40 x 1 hour = 40 hours). Each focus group will last no more than two hours (40 x 2 hours = 80 hours). Therefore, the total burden for this collection is estimated to be 130 hours, which includes the time spent to recruit and confirm participants, as well as the time confirmed participants will spend to visit CASA prior to the focus group and to participate in the focus group (Table 3).

Table 3: Burden estimate

	Responses	Completion time (minutes)	Burden hours
Initial contact*	40	7	5
Follow-up contact with confirmed participants	40	5	3
Site visit	40	60	40
Focus group session	40	120	80
TOTAL:	160		128

* Combined recruitment methods (flyer and snowball).

REPORTING PLAN:

The study results will be presented in an internal report for park managers. The report will be submitted to NPS for review and will present the methods and findings subject to thematic coding and subsequent analysis. The report will feature statements made by participants without revealing the identity of the participant. The report will also provide key recommendations based on the study findings. The final report will be delivered to park managers in electronic format.

LITERATURE CITED:

Dhanani S. 2002. Community-based strategies for focus group recruitment of minority veterans. Military medicine. 167(6): 501.

Gilliss CL, Lee KA, Gutierrez Y, Taylor D, Beyene Y, Neuhaus J, Murrell N. 2001. Recruitment and retention of minority women in to community-based longitudinal research. Journal of women’s health & gender-based medicine. 10(1): 77-85.

Krueger R, Casey MA. 2014. Focus groups: A practical guide for applied research. Sage publications.

Le Y, Holmes NC, Kulesza C. 2012. Barriers to a backyard national park: Case study of African American communities in Columbia, SC. Natural Resources Report NPS/NRSS/EDQ/NRR – 2012/604. National Park Service, Fort Collins, Colorado.

Le Y, Holmes NC, Kulesza C. 2013. Barriers to the wilderness next door: Recreational preferences and behaviors of Hispanics in Tucson, AZ – revised. Natural Resources Report NPS/NRSS/EDQ/NRR – 2013/614. National Park Service, Fort Collins, Colorado.

Miller HM, Sexton NR, Koontz L, Loomis J, Koontz SR, Hermans C. 2011. The users, uses, and value of Landsat and other moderate-resolution satellite imagery in the United States – Executive report. US Department of the Interior, Geological Survey. 42.

QuickFacts: St. Johns County, Florida. 2016. U.S. Census Bureau. Available from https://www.census.gov/quickfacts
/fact/table/stjohnscountyflorida/AGE295216.

Wejnert C, Heckathorn DD. 2008. Web-based network sampling: efficiency and efficacy of respondent-driven sampling for online research. Sociological Methods & Research. 37(1): 105-134.

NOTICES

Privacy Act Statement

General: This information is provided pursuant to Public Law 93-579 (Privacy Act of 1974), December 21, 1984, for individuals completing this form.

Authority: National Park Service Research mandate (54 USC 100702)

Purpose and Uses: This information will be used by The NPS Information Collections Coordinator to ensure appropriate documentation of information collections conducted in areas managed by or that are sponsored by the National Park Service.

Effects of Nondisclosure: Providing information is mandatory to submit Information Collection Requests to Programmatic Review Process.

Paperwork Reduction Act Statement

We are collecting this information subject to the Paperwork Reduction Act (44 U.S.C. 3501) and is authorized by the National Park Service Research mandate (54 USC 100702). This information will be used by The NPS Information Collections Coordinator to ensure appropriate documentation of information collections conducted in areas managed by or that are sponsored by the National Park Service. All parts of the form must be completed in order for your request to be considered. We may not conduct or sponsor and you are not required to respond to, this or any other Federal agency-sponsored information collection unless it displays a currently valid OMB control number. OMB has reviewed and approved The National Park Service Programmatic Review Process and assigned OMB Control Number 1024-0224.

Estimated Burden Statement

Public Reporting burden for this form is estimated to average 60 minutes per collection, including the time it takes for reviewing instructions, gathering information and completing and reviewing the form. This time does not include the editorial time required to finalize the submission. Comments regarding this burden estimate or any aspect of this form should be sent to the Information Collection Clearance Coordinator, National Park Service, 1201 Oakridge Dr., Fort Collins, CO 80525.

RECORDS RETENTION - PERMANENT. Transfer all permanent records to NARA 15 years after closure. (NPS Records Schedule, Resource Page 1 of 10

Management And Lands (Item 1.A.2) (N1-79-08-1)).