Generic Template

Request for Approval under the

“Generic Clearance for the Collection of Routine Customer Feedback”

(OMB Control Number: 1880-0542)

TITLE OF INFORMATION COLLECTION:

IES Modernization Interviews and Focus Groups

PURPOSE:

The Institute of Education Sciences (IES) is the nation's premier source for research, evaluation and statistics for educators, policymakers, and stakeholders seeking to improve outcomes for all students. IES supports a diverse but critical set of services for the nation's educators and researchers, including acting as an independent non-partisan curator of the survey and performance data of the Department of Education as well as directly funding rigorous testing of new approaches to improving education outcomes. IES users are as diverse as the services offered by the Institute, which presents a particular challenge when attempting to deliver world-class experiences through IES digital channels. Currently, IES’s website is built according to its organizational chart and doesn’t reflect customer/user experience research and mission-driven, agile development practices. Previous attempts to redesign the digital experience have been based solely on internal input, without the benefit of external user research and insight. The IES Customer Experience effort addresses these challenges through a user-first understanding of IES. The goal of this research is to use interviews and focus groups to gain insights into current audiences and how IES might better serve them. IES has provided a pool of potential research participants, and this project will conduct individual interviews and focus groups with those targeted participants. The results of the research will be used to refine the understanding of key IES user groups and determine what information is most useful to them so we can better achieve the mission of IES. We will also use these findings to inform future user research; the questions we ask now may inform a user survey at a later date.

DESCRIPTION OF RESPONDENTS:

The projected groups of participants are defined by their relationships to IES, and are as follows: (1) Policy Makers and Associations, consumers of IES data and targets in the IES mission statement (e.g., State Educational Agencies (SEAs) and Local Education Agencies (LEAs)); (2) Researchers, consumers of IES data, grant recipients, and targets in the IES mission statement (e.g., education PhDs, IES grant applicants); (3) Media – translators of IES data to the general public (e.g., EdWeek leadership and staff, via introductions from IES leadership); and (4) Education Subject Matter Experts, users of IES data and the education research landscape (e.g., experts from Grant Thornton Team network)

TYPE OF COLLECTION: (Check one)

[ ] Customer Comment Card/Complaint Form [ ] Customer Satisfaction Survey

[ ] Usability Testing (e.g., Website or Software) [ ] Small Discussion Group

[X] Focus Group [X] Other: Individual Interviews

CERTIFICATION:

I certify the following to be true:

1. The collection is voluntary.

2. The collection is low-burden for respondents and low-cost for the Federal Government.

3. The collection is non-controversial and does not raise issues of concern to other federal agencies.

4. The results are not intended to be disseminated to the public.

5. Information gathered will not be used for the purpose of substantially informing influential policy decisions.

6. The collection is targeted to the solicitation of opinions from respondents who have experience with the program or may have experience with the program in the future.

Name: Carrie Clarady (carrie.clarady@ed.gov)

Personally Identifiable Information:

1. Is personally identifiable information (PII) collected? [ ] Yes [X] No

2. If Yes, is the information that will be collected included in records that are subject to the Privacy Act of 1974? [ ] Yes [X] No

3. If Applicable, has a System or Records Notice been published? [ ] Yes [ ] No

Gifts or Payments:

Is an incentive (e.g., money or reimbursement of expenses, token of appreciation) provided to participants? [ ] Yes [X] No

BURDEN HOURS

	No. of respondents	No. of responses	Participation Time	Burden Hours
Recruitment	75	75	10 min	12.5
Interviews and focus groups (subtotal)	57	57	-	69.5
Policy Makers & Associations*	25	25	1.5 hour	37.5
Researchers	12	12	1 hour	12
Media	10	10	1 hour	10
Education Subject Matter Experts	10	10	1 hour	10
Totals	132	132		82

* Respondents who are Policy Makers or key members of Associations may participate in either 1:1 interviews or focus groups. We estimate that 1:1 interviews will take no more than one hour, while focus groups may extend to an hour and a half. For that reason, this row represents the highest possible estimate of burden for this group, assuming that all respondents in this category will participate in a focus group, which is almost certainly not the case.

Italicized rows provide more detail and should not be considered as duplicative of rows providing subtotals.

FEDERAL COST: For this study there is a $0 incremental cost because it is a part of a larger IES Customer Experience effort and does not include surveys or third-party recruitment costs. The cost is also $0 because the interviewees are from known introductions vs surveys or cold outreach, and there are no incentives offered to participants.

If you are conducting a focus group, survey, or will employ statistical methods, provide answers to the following questions:

The selection of your targeted respondents

1. Do you have a customer list or something similar that defines the universe of potential respondents and do you have a sampling plan for selecting from this universe? [X] Yes [ ] No

If the answer is yes, please provide a description of both below (or attach the sampling plan)? If the answer is no, please provide a description of how you plan to identify your potential group of respondents and how you will select them?

Leadership at IES and the research team have together compiled a list of individual Subject Matter Experts (SMEs), current users, and potential future users and user groups. The list was created by IES leadership, their team, and the research team based on previous research. We will continue to grow this list during the initial interviews based on recommendations from Subject Matter Experts. The maximum number of potential respondents we will contact is 75.

Administration of the Instrument

1. How will you collect the information? (Check all that apply)

[ ] Web-based or other forms of Social Media

[X] Telephone

[X] In-person

[ ] Mail

[X] Other, Explain: In-person interviews will be available as an option, although we don’t expect them to be widely used. (Data collection will likely take place in April 2020.)

2. Will interviewers or facilitators be used? [X] Yes [ ] No

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