Final Supporting Statement

SUPPORTING STATEMENT FOR
PAPERWORK REDUCTION ACT SUBMISSION

Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs

Youth Programs Division

ECA Exchange Student Surveys
OMB Number 1405-0210
SV2012-0007 and SV2012-0010

1. JUSTIFICATION

1. The U.S. Department of State promotes the long-term foreign policy objectives of the United States and encourages mutual understanding between the people of the United States and other countries by means of educational and cultural exchange programs. The Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (“ECA”) supports youth exchanges by awarding institutional grants and cooperative agreements to U.S. non-profits. The authority for such activities is under the Mutual Educational and Cultural Exchange Act of 1961, as amended, 22 U.S.C. 2451 et seq. The Department is requesting approval of an information collection for an ECA study. This study is to help ensure the safety and well-being of high school exchange students on Department of State-sponsored academic year programs. It is one part of the overall monitoring effort undertaken by ECA. A survey is not legally or administratively required but provides another avenue for ascertaining whether Department of State sponsored students are healthy and safe and receiving the support they need in their exchange programs.

2. The information gathered will be used internally as part of an overall effort by the Youth Programs Division to ascertain whether there are any issues that would affect the safety and well-being of program participants.

3. The Youth Programs Division has acquired an electronic survey tool for the purpose of undertaking this survey (SurveyMonkey). This tool reduces the overall burden on respondents by allowing them to complete the survey at a convenient time and makes it easy to respond and submit answers electronically. This lessens the Department’s burden of printing and postal costs associated with disseminating a paper-based product to the respondents. In addition, the use of the electronic surveys will provide the Department with the means to quickly and easily gather data.

4. There are no equivalent surveys being undertaken, so there is no duplication or a readily available alternate method to collect this information.

5. There is no impact on small businesses or entities as the targeted audience (respondents) are participants in Department-sponsored Youth Programs.

6. The exchange program is an important public diplomacy tool for the Department of State. Being able to gather information in order to make program decisions and improve the ability of the division to respond to incidents increases the efficiency and reach of this effort. This information collection will gather data to assist the Department in ensuring that Youth programs, authorized under 22 U.S.C. 2452 et seq., meet both statutory and regulatory requirements.

7. There are no special circumstances associated with this information collection.

8. The Department published a 60-day notice in the Federal Register on October 27, 2015 (80 FR 65485) soliciting public comments. No comments were received.

9. No gifts or payments will be provided to respondents and participation is voluntary.

10. The Department will keep the information private to the extent permitted by law.

11. There are no questions of a sensitive nature contained in this information collection.

12. It is expected that there will be approximately 1,800 respondents to this survey (one response each) and that the survey will require about 15 minutes per respondent for a total burden of 450 hours. This was calculated by providing the survey to program officers in the division and eliciting their responses. The survey has 11 short questions. The respondents are expected to be 1800 foreign high school exchange students on J-1 visas.

The annualized cost to the respondents for the hour burdens for this collection of information, based upon the appropriate wage categories is $13,413 (rounded to the nearest dollar). This was calculated by multiplying the total hours (450) by $21.29/hour, the average mean hourly civilian wage from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and an overhead factor of 1.4.

Table 2

Respondent Burden per Survey

	ITEM	ANNUAL TOTAL	3 YEAR TOTAL
Foreign Exchange Students in US Survey	Estimated Number of Respondents	1800	5400
	Estimated Number of Responses	1800	5400
	Average Hours Per Response	15 Minutes	15 Minutes
Total Hours		450	1350
Total Respondents		1800	5400

13. There will be no cost to respondents. Participation is voluntary and no fee is charged in connection with this Survey.

14. The annual fee for the survey, paid by the Department to SurveyMonkey, is $300. The cost in employee time is calculated as follows: one employee (GS-13) with an average hourly wage of $75.00 (including benefits), will spend approximately 5 percent of his or her time processing and analyzing the survey, which yields a cost of $7,500. The total cost is $7,800.

15. This is a revision of a currently approved collection. Form SV2012-0010 (OMB Control Number 1405-0210) is being discontinued. It was intended to serve as a survey for American students overseas but it was never used and will not be used in the future. Form SV2012-0007 will be continued in its present form and will be used only for students who are citizens of foreign countries on high school exchange programs in the United States.

SV2012-0007 Question 1 was altered slightly in order to make the collection of demographic information from respondents optional. This change was made in order to collect as little personally identifiable information as possible. The remaining questions were also non-substantively altered. The radio buttons and wording of the questions were changed slightly. These changes were made in order to have a consistent style throughout the survey and will make the survey more understandable to respondents.

16. The Department will not publish the collected information. Analysis of the information collected will not involve any complex statistical methodology.

17. The Department will display the OMB expiration date.

18. The Department is not requesting any exceptions to the certification statement.

B. COLLECTION OF INFORMATION EMPLOYING STATISTICAL METHODS

The supporting statement for statistical methods is attached.