Part A TALIS 2018 Main Study

The Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) is an international survey of teachers and principals focusing on the working conditions of teachers and the teaching and learning practices in schools. The United States will administer TALIS for the second time in 2018, having participated in 2013 but not in 2008. TALIS 2018 is sponsored by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). In the U.S., TALIS 2018 is conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) of the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. Each administration of TALIS is a collaborative effort by the participating countries, guided by their governments on the basis of shared policy driven interests.

TALIS 2018 has a strong focus on teachers’ professional environment, teaching conditions, and their impact on school and teacher effectiveness. TALIS 2018 will also address teacher training and professional development, teachers’ appraisal, school climate, school leadership, teachers’ instructional approaches, teachers’ pedagogical practices, and their experience with and support for teaching diverse populations.

In February 2017, the TALIS 2018 field test was conducted to evaluate newly developed teacher and school questionnaire items and test the survey operations. The recruitment of schools for the 2018 main study sample was approved in September 2016 with the latest change request approved in June 2017 (OMB# 1850-0888 v.4-6). This request is to conduct the TALIS 2018 main study.

The materials to be used in the main study are based upon those that were approved in September 2016 - June 2017. With those submissions, NCES adequately justified the need for and overall practical utility of the full study as proposed and an overarching plan for the phases of the data collection over the next 3 years, and provided as much detail on the measures to be used as was available at the time of the submission. Thus OMB approved the initial phase of this collection in September 2016 - June 2017, and now NCES published a notice in the Federal Register allowing a 30-day public comment period on the details of the subsequent study components (the TALIS 2018 main study) described in this submission. It is important to note that because TALIS is a collaborative international study, the U.S. administration of TALIS operates under some constraints, particularly around the schedule and the availability of instruments, which are developed and negotiated internationally.

A. JUSTIFICATION

A.1 Importance of Information

As part of a continuing cycle of international education studies, the U.S., through NCES, is currently and in the coming years participating in several international assessments and surveys. TALIS, sponsored by OECD, is one of these studies. TALIS 2018 is part of the larger international program that NCES has actively participated in through collaboration with, and representation at, the OECD. Through this active participation, NCES has sought to strengthen the quality, consistency, and timeliness of international data. To continue this effort, the U.S. must follow through with well-organized and executed data gathering activities within the nation’s boundaries. These efforts allow NCES to build a comprehensive data network that reports on the status of education in the U.S. and informs decision-making at the national, state, and local levels.

Participating in TALIS 2018 will allow the U.S. to continue to compare with and learn from other countries working to improve their education systems and using a variety of approaches. Reponses from school principals and teachers cover subjects such as professional development they have received; their teaching beliefs and practices; the review of teachers’ work and the feedback and recognition they received about their work; and various other school leadership, management, and workplace issues.

TALIS 2018 questionnaire development began in January 2016 and continued into summer of 2017. A pilot study began in May 2016 (the U.S. did not participate in the pilot study), and the field test was conducted in February 2017 (U.S. participated in the field test). The main study will occur in the Southern hemisphere from October through December 2017 and in the Northern hemisphere from March through May 2018. The initial report from the main study data collection is due to be released in June 2019.

A.2 Purposes and Uses of Data

The OECD launched the Education Indicators Project (INES) to help create a system of indicators for cross-national comparisons in education for the use of policy makers, consumers, and private industry. INES achieves its purpose by collecting and analyzing a set of key indicators for international comparison; providing an international forum for the exchange of methods and practices of developing and using education indicators for national policymakers; and contributing to evaluation methodology and developing more valid, reliable, and comprehensive indicators for use in policymaking. TALIS has been designed to increase the international information available to OECD countries on teachers, teaching, and the impact that teachers can have on student learning. The overall objective of TALIS is to provide international indicators and policy-relevant analysis on teachers and teaching in order to help countries develop and review policies that create the conditions for effective schooling.

The TALIS 2018 administration will focus on the ISCED¹ Level 2 teacher workforce. ISCED Level 2 is also known as lower secondary education and usually lasts between 2 and 6 years, and begins around age 11. Middle school and junior high school (grades 7 through 9) in the U.S. are classified as ISCED Level 2. The administration of TALIS 2018 will include both classroom teachers of lower secondary education school programs as well as the principals of their schools. Teachers that teach in special needs-only schools, that teach exclusively adults, occasional or emergency teachers, or teachers who are on long-term leave and are not expected to be back teaching at the time of data collection are not included in the sample.

TALIS Instruments: Every participating country must implement two core background questionnaires for TALIS 2018: a principal, or school, questionnaire and a teacher questionnaire. These instruments have been developed to address the TALIS 2018 questionnaire framework, which defines the themes described below in section A.4, including teaching and learning practices and beliefs, professional development of teachers, school governance, job satisfaction, and teacher self-efficacy. In addition, the questionnaires include items that have been administered in multiple cycles of TALIS, allowing the investigation of patterns and trends over time. Countries adapt the questions to fit their national context and the questionnaires are reviewed and professionally verified to ensure they remain comparable across countries.

A.3 Improved Information Technology (Reduction of Burden)

The TALIS 2018 design and procedures are prescribed internationally. Data collection involves participants completing a 45 minute questionnaire (principal) and a 60 minute questionnaire (teacher). In an attempt to reduce the amount of paper and printing costs, the TALIS survey instruments for the main study will be administered online, although paper versions will be made available to participants upon request. The field test successfully administered the questionnaires online with minimal use (n=3) of paper versions.

A.4 Efforts to Identify Duplication

The U.S., through NCES, has been conducting its own national survey of schools and school personnel called the Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) since 1985, currently redesigned as the National Teacher and Principal Survey (NTPS). Additionally, the U.S. continues to conduct the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) program, which includes teacher and school questionnaires, and participates in several international assessments which have teacher and school questionnaires, including the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS), and the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). The teacher and school questionnaires used in TALIS differ from these studies’ questionnaires in several important ways.

SASS and NTPS focus on collecting foundational school and organizational teacher characteristics, such as teacher demand and shortage, teacher and administrator characteristics, school programs, general conditions in schools, perceptions of school climate, and problems in school, teacher compensation, and hiring practices. TALIS items, on the other hand, aim to form connections between these key characteristics and highlight the underlying mechanisms driving teacher practice. More specifically, where SASS and NTPS collect a large amount of information on a teacher’s background, training, and in-field or out-of-field credentials, TALIS investigates other factors that may impact instructional practice such as items focused on instructional beliefs and the likelihood of utilizing various pedagogical strategies. Notably, TALIS also focuses on gathering the information necessary to make connections between teacher appraisal and feedback and the type, frequency, and duration of professional development opportunities teachers receive.

In addition to conceptual differences in item design, TALIS and SASS/NTPS also differ in the measurement of items. In the areas where there is some overlap between these two survey instruments, the response categories for teachers are quite different and not interchangeable. For example, whereas the duration of professional development items in SASS focus on the number of hours spent in professional development activities, concentrating on a teacher’s primary content area, TALIS focuses on the number of days spent in a variety of different professional development areas and on the perceived impact of that professional development on their practice. Further, while SASS/NTPS focuses on 12 month periods of inquiry, TALIS focuses on professional development over 18 months. Therefore, for both conceptual and measurement reasons, alternate sources for these data do not exist. In 2016, NCES convened a task force to compare the newest NTPS and TALIS questionnaires to identify potential areas of overlap and avoid duplicative efforts in the latest iterations of both surveys.

The studies NAEP, TIMSS, PIRLS, and PISA also have teacher and school questionnaires, but their focus is student achievement in concentrated subject areas. NAEP collects information about teachers’ backgrounds and instructional practices as they relate to student achievement, and investigates the relationship between students’ achievement and various school and teacher factors that may influence this achievement. TIMSS seeks information about teachers’ background, instructional practices, and attitudes toward teaching a specific subject (mathematics or science). PIRLS intends to supply information about teacher backgrounds, classroom resources, and instructional materials for teaching reading. PISA does not intend to provide direct information about improving instructional practice in the classroom, but its focus is background information related to general school context.

TALIS 2018 focuses on 10 themes motivated by current theory and research, including:

Teachers’ instructional practices and beliefs: teaching practices and beliefs with a focus on classroom management; teachers’ views on resources of effective teaching; teachers’ openness to adopting innovative teaching practices; and their views on school conditions and incentives to foster innovation.
School leadership: the profile of school leadership and management styles (including indicators on the roles and functions of school leaders); and distributed/team leadership.
Teachers’ professional practices: mobility, teaching practices; cooperation among teaching staff; teaching special education needs students; the pedagogical use of technology (while ensuring there is no overlap with PISA); and student assessment practices.
Teacher education and initial preparation: level and year of teacher training completion, duration of education; grade range teachers were prepared to teach; type of school at which teachers were prepared to teach; entrance requirements (school exam, university exam, practical experience); school grade in comparison to the age cohort; degree of subject specialization (number of majors and minors, training as generalists); major in the subject being taught; relative emphasis to learn content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, general pedagogical knowledge, and practical experience;
Teacher feedback and development: in-service professional development (types of activities, participation rates, intensity of participation, mentoring, and induction programs); the needs and demands for in-service professional development; barriers preventing participation in in-service professional development; the perceived impact of in-service professional development; and initial teacher education; forms of professional development that impact teaching and other aspects of professional practice; connections between teacher feedback and development; feedback as a feature of effective professional development; feedback supporting innovation in teaching practice.
School climate: disciplinary climate; teacher-student relations; teachers’ working time; and parent-teacher and parent-school relations.
Job satisfaction: overall job satisfaction; teacher perception of the value of the teaching profession; teachers’ views on the factors that would increase their job satisfaction and perception of the value of the profession.
Teacher human resource issues and stakeholder relations: linking teacher perception of the value of the profession with more specific links to stakeholders (parents, students, school leaders, media, and society at large); teachers’ views regarding the professionalism of teaching and for improving the status of teaching; teachers’ perception of linking pay to (student) performance and assessments.
Teacher self-efficacy: the extent to which teachers feel capable of performing general teaching practices and specific instruction to foster 21^st century skills; the relations between self-efficacy, job satisfaction, and further relevant teacher outcomes; individual differences in self-efficacy with respect to teachers’ age, education, gender, and school environment.
Diversity: policies and practices surrounding the recognition of diversity and supports for inclusion at the school and in the classroom.

These themes encompass both new topics deemed important in the current teaching landscape and retain specific topics covered in TALIS 2013. The results of TALIS will inform education policy and spur further investigation into differences within and between countries. Alternate sources for these data do not exist. This submission represents participation of the U.S. in TALIS 2018 involving 44 countries. The U.S. must collect the same information at the same time as the other nations for purposes of making international comparisons. No other study in the U.S. will be using the instruments developed by the international sponsoring organization, and thus no alternative sources of comparable data are available.

In order to participate in the international study, the U.S. must agree to administer the same core instruments that will be administered in the other countries. Because the items measuring the teaching workforce, the conditions of teaching, and the learning environments of schools have been developed with intensive international coordination, any changes to the TALIS 2018 instruments would also require international coordination. Thus, opportunities to impact the survey instruments are limited to key international dates. Following the completion of the field test and subsequent analysis of the field test data, changes to the instruments were discussed internationally and committed to the instruments during the summer of 2017. These revised international main study versions of the instruments were distributed to countries in late August 2017. The instruments were then adapted to a U.S. audience following verification procedures prescribed by the OECD Consortium and the final versions to be used in the main study can be found in appendix B of this submission.

A.5 Minimizing Burden for Small Entities

No small entities are part of this sample. The school sample for TALIS will contain small-, medium-, and large-size schools from a wide range of school types, including private schools, and burden will be minimized wherever possible for all institutions participating in the data collection. In addition, contractor staff will assume as much of the organization and survey administration as possible within each school.

A.6 Frequency of Data Collection

TALIS 2018 is the second administration of TALIS in the U.S. The survey is conducted on a 5-year cycle, as prescribed by the international sponsoring organization, and adherence to this schedule is necessary to establish consistency in survey operations among the many participating countries.

A.7 Special Circumstances

No special circumstances exist in the data collection plan for TALIS 2018 that would necessitate unique or unusual manners of data collection.

A.8 Consultations Outside NCES

Consultations outside NCES have been extensive and will continue throughout the life of the project. The nature of the study requires this, because international studies typically are developed as a cooperative enterprise involving all participating countries. TALIS 2018 is being developed and operated, under the auspices of the OECD, by a consortium of organizations:

Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development

Karine Tremblay, TALIS Project Manager

2, rue André Pascal, 75775 Paris Cedex16, FRANCE, Tel: +33 (1) 4524 9366, Fax: +33 (1) 4524 9098

IEA Data Processing and Research Center (DPC); Hamburg, Germany)

Dr. Steffen Knoll, TALIS Operations Study Director

Mexikoring 37, 22297 Hamburg, Germany, Tel: +49 40 48 500 500, Fax: +49 40 48 500 501

Statistics Canada (Ottawa, Canada)

Yves Morin, Senior Methodologist, International Co-operation & Corporate Statistical Methods Division

R.H. Coats Building 25th floor 100 Tunney’s Pasture Driveway Ottawa ON K1A OT6 Canada

Tel: +1 613 863 9590

A.9 Payments or Gifts to Respondents

School and teacher participation is vital to reaching the international standard for the target sample size needed for a country to be a part of the study. Currently, the minimum response rate targets required by OECD are at least 75 percent of schools after replacement and 75 percent of selected teachers, while the NCES statistical standards require a minimum response rate target of 85 percent at the school and teacher levels. Historically, these high response rates have been difficult to achieve in school-based studies. Based on the international standards, the U.S. did not achieve an acceptable level of response in the 2013 cycle, the only country of 34 participating education systems to not have met the minimum. As a result, the OECD shows data from the U.S. separately from other participating countries in their TALIS 2013 report, and does not include U.S. data when computing international averages or creating indices using 2013 TALIS data.

The TALIS field test was successful in that we were able to obtain the necessary number of participating schools and a good within-school teacher response rate (93 percent teacher participation within schools and 100 percent of principals from participating schools). However, we anticipate difficulty recruiting the required number of school in the main study, as has been the case in TALIS 2013. The recruitment of schools for the TALIS 2018 field test did not follow the model that will be used in the main study because participating countries were not required to build a response rate for schools from the initial sample and, instead, only had to obtain participation from an adequate number of schools, from both originally sampled schools and their replacement schools, to get the required number of teacher responses for evaluation of the survey items. Thus in the field test, after approaching schools from the initial sample, we were able to move quickly to replacement schools with very little, if any, conversion effort. Moreover, in the field test we did not recruit schools in states where traditionally we have had difficulty gaining school cooperation. This will not be the case in the main study where we must pursue all schools from the initial national sampled until we obtain the minimum required rate of participation. U.S. historically has experienced difficulty obtaining sufficient school response rates in TALIS and other international studies, requiring additional efforts to meet the international minimum response rate requirements. Finally, we are learning from our recruitment efforts for other NCES studies that the current climate regarding voluntary assessments is even more challenging this year than in the past years.

NCES will continue using a multi-pronged approach to address the challenge of gaining school and teacher cooperation in order to achieve acceptable participation rates. Prior to the field test, we reviewed the most recent TALIS 2013 experience to understand where possible improvements can be made in materials and communication with schools. Staff with experience working on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), PISA, other international assessments, other large-scale data collections, and with expertise in effective approaches to school recruitment provided input to help us develop strategies for achieving high response rates and continue to serve as an ongoing source of ideas and feedback. These efforts worked well during the field test, and coupled with the feedback we received from schools that participated in the field test, we have further refined our materials and validated our procedures for communications with sample members and for administering the survey. The strategy continues the use of incentives for schools, school coordinators, and teachers, which remain the same as those used in the TALIS 2018 field test (OMB 1850-0888 v.4-6).

Schools. Schools participating in TALIS will receive $200. In order to meet the minimum school response rates mandated by the TALIS international governing board, and in order to compensate the school for the increased disruption, we believe it is necessary to offer schools this incentive to encourage participation.

School coordinators. The school coordinator will be offered $200. The role of the school coordinator is critical for the success of the study. The coordinator is expected to coordinate logistics with the data collection contractor; supply a list of eligible teachers for sampling to the data collection contractor; communicate with teachers about the study to encourage participation. The school coordinators are an integral part of the success of TALIS in schools (see Appendix A for school coordinator instructions). While we try to minimize their burden, they are our link to the school and teachers. We want to limit as much as we can the possibility of the school coordinator feeling burdened or unrewarded for their time and effort.

Teachers: The main study will implement a teacher questionnaire delivered as an on-line instrument with a paper version available upon request. Selected teachers will be offered $20 for completing the questionnaire.

A.10 Assurance of Confidentiality

Confidentiality and data security protection procedures have been put in place for TALIS 2018 to ensure that the contractor and its subcontractors comply with all privacy requirements, including

The statement of work for TALIS 2018 contract;
Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) of 1974 (20 U.S.C. §1232(g));
Privacy Act of 1974 (5 U.S.C. §552a);
Privacy Act Regulations (34 CFR Part 5b);
Computer Security Act of 1987;
U.S.A. Patriot Act of 2001 (P.L. 107-56);
Education Sciences Reform Act of 2002 (ESRA 2002, 20 U.S.C. §9573);
Confidential Information Protection and Statistical Efficiency Act of 2002;
E-Government Act of 2002, Title V, Subtitle A;
Cybersecurity Enhancement Act of 2015 (6 U.S.C. §151);
The U.S. Department of Education General Handbook for Information Technology Security General Support Systems and Major Applications Inventory Procedures (March 2005);
The U.S. Department of Education Incident Handling Procedures (February 2009);
The U.S. Department of Education, ACS Directive OM: 5-101, Contractor Employee Personnel Security Screenings;
NCES Statistical Standards; and
All new legislation that impacts the data collected through the contract for this study.

Furthermore, the contractor will comply with the Department of Education’s IT security policy requirements as set forth in the Handbook for Information Assurance Security Policy and related procedures and guidance, as well as IT security requirements in the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA), Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) publications, Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Circulars, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) standards and guidance. All data products and publications will also adhere to the revised NCES Statistical Standards, as described at the website: http://nces.ed.gov/statprog/2012/.

By law (20 U.S.C. §9573), a violation of the confidentiality restrictions is a felony, punishable by imprisonment of up to 5 years and/or a fine of up to $250,000. All government or contracted staff working on the TALIS study and having access to the data, including TALIS field staff, are required to sign an NCES Affidavit of Nondisclosure and have received public-trust security clearance. These requirements include the successful certification and accreditation of the system before it can be implemented. Appropriate memoranda of understanding and interconnection security agreements will be documented as part of the certification and accreditation process.

All contractor and subcontractor TALIS 2018 staff also undergo personnel training regarding the meaning of confidentiality, particularly as it relates to handling requests for information and providing assurance to respondents about the protection of their responses; controlled and protected access to computer files under the control of a single data base manager; built-in safeguards concerning status monitoring and receipt control systems; and a secured and operator-manned in-house computing facility.

The laws pertaining to the use of personally identifiable information are clearly communicated in correspondence with states, districts, school administrators, and teachers. Letters and information materials describe the study, its voluntary nature, and the extent to which respondents and their responses will be kept confidential (see Appendix A). Recruitment letters and supporting materials indicate:

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), within the U.S. Department of Education, conducts the Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) in the United States as authorized by the Education Sciences Reform Act of 2002 (ESRA 2002, 20 U.S.C. §9543). All of the information you provide may be used only for statistical purposes and may not be disclosed, or used, in identifiable form for any other purpose except as required by law (20 U.S.C. §9573 and 6 U.S.C. §151).

The following statement will appear on the log-in page and/or the front cover of the TALIS 2018 printed questionnaires:

According to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, no persons are required to respond to a collection of information unless such collection displays a valid OMB control number. The valid OMB control number for this voluntary information collection is 1850-0888. The time required to complete this information collection is estimated to average [45/60] minutes per [school administrator/teacher], including the time to review instructions, gather the data needed, and complete and review the information collection. If you have any comments or concerns regarding the accuracy of the time estimate(s), suggestions for improving the form, or questions about the status of your individual submission of this form, write directly to: Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS), National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), Potomac Center Plaza, 550 12^th Street, SW, 4^th floor, Washington, DC 20202.

OMB No. 1850-0888, Approval Expires xx/xx/20xx

NCES has extensive experience in developing data files for release that meet the government’s requirements to protect individually identifiable data from disclosure. The contractor will conduct a thorough disclosure analysis of the TALIS 2018 main study data when preparing restricted use data files, in compliance with 20 U.S.C., § 9573. Schools with high disclosure risk will be identified, and a variety of masking strategies will be used to ensure that individuals may not be identified from the data files, including: swapping data and omitting key identification variables (i.e., school name and address) from both the public- and restricted-use files (though the restricted-use file will include an NCES school ID that can be linked to other NCES databases that identify schools); omitting key identification variables such as state or ZIP Code from the public-use file; and collapsing categories or developing categories for continuous variables to retain information for analytic purposes while preserving confidentiality in public-use files.

A.11 Sensitive Questions

The TALIS 2018 main study does not include questions usually considered to be of a highly sensitive nature, such as items concerning religion, substance abuse, or sexual activity.

A.12 Estimates of Burden

The burden to respondents for the TALIS 2018 main study is calculated for the estimated time required of special handling districts staff and school staff (school administrator, school coordinators, and teachers) to complete recruitment, pre-survey, and survey activities (Table 1). Survey participation includes the time involved to complete teacher and school administrator questionnaires. Recruitment and pre-survey activities include the time involved for (a) special handling districts to review TALIS research application and (b) schools to decide to participate and who will distribute questionnaire to the school administrators and teachers, completing teacher listing forms, and notifying sampled teachers.

The estimated response burden for schools is based on a 45 minute online school questionnaire for administrators and a 60 minute online teacher questionnaire (each including 15 minutes for instructions and each available in a paper and pencil version available upon request), 90 minutes for school administrators during the recruitment process, and an average of 4 hours for school coordinators to coordinate logistics with the data collection contractor, supply a list of eligible teachers, and encourage teachers to participate in the survey.

We estimate that there may be 24 special handling districts in the main study sample – those known to require completion of a research application before they will allow schools under their jurisdiction to participate in a study. Estimated burden hours for special handling districts are included under “Special Handling Districts IRB Staff Approval” and “Special Handling Districts IRB Panel Approval” and reflect estimated burden associated with school district staff reviewing and processing special handling district research application materials. Contacting special districts begins with updating district information based on what can be gleaned from online sources, followed by calls to verify the information about where to send the completed required research application forms, and, if necessary, to collect contact information for this process. During the call, inquiry is made about the amount of time the districts spend reviewing similar research applications. The estimated number of such districts represents those with particularly detailed application forms and lengthy processes for approval. This operation should begin upon OMB approval of this request, in the fall 2017, to allow sufficient time for special districts’ review processes.

The estimated hourly rates for middle school and secondary school teachers/instructional staff, noninstructional staff/coordinators, and principals ($28.93, $22.58, $45.86 respectively) are based on Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) May 2016 National Occupational and Employment Wage Estimates². For the TALIS main study a total of 5,042 burden hours are anticipated, resulting in an estimated burden time cost to respondents of approximately $151,671.

Table 1. Burden estimates for TALIS 2018 main study (MS)

	Sample	Expected response rate	Number of respondents	Number of responses	Burden per respondent (minutes)	Total burden (hours)
Main Study Recruitment and Pre-Survey Activity
Special Handling Districts IRB Staff	24	1	24	24	120	48
Special Handling Districts IRB Panel	144	1	144	144	60	144
School administrator	220	0.91	200	200	90	300
School coordinator	200	1	200	200	240	800
Main Study Survey Participation
School administrator	220	0.91	200	200	45	150
Teacher	4,000	0.90	3,600	3,600	60	3,600
Total MS burden			4,168	4,368		5,042

A.13 Total Annual Cost Burden

Other than the time burden cost associated with completing the TALIS questionnaires (estimated above in Section A.12), the main study imposes no additional cost to respondents.

A.14 Annualized Cost to Federal Government

The total cost to the Federal Government for conducting the TALIS 2018 main study as described in the current request is estimated to be $1,205,816. The national contract for the TALIS 2018 main study is included in the PISA 2018 contract and has not yet been finalized.

Components with breakdown	Estimated costs
FIELD TEST (2017)
Recruitment	124,482
Preparations (e.g., adapting instruments, sampling)	109,515
Data collection, scoring, and coding	287,102
MAIN STUDY (2018)
Recruitment	397,037
Preparations (e.g., adapting instruments, sampling)	101,818
Data collection, scoring, and coding	476,589
Reporting and dissemination	230,372
Current package components	$1,205,816
Grand total	$1,713,423

A.15 Program Changes or Adjustments

The apparent increase in the estimated respondent burden is because the last OMB approval was for TALIS 2018 main study recruitment and field test, while this request is to conduct all aspects of the TALIS 2018 main study.

A.16 Plans for Tabulation and Publication

For the TALIS 2018 main study, we will conduct analysis of the U.S. and international data to report on the U.S. national results in relation to the international results. Based on proposed analyses of the international data set by Statistics Canada, and the need for NCES to report results from the perspective of the U.S. constituency, a plan is being prepared for the statistical analysis of the U.S. national data set as compared to the international data set. Analysis of data will include examinations of the survey instruments of U.S. teachers and school principals in relation to their international counterparts. All reports and publications on the U.S. national results will be coordinated with the release of information from the international organizing body. Planned publications and reports for the TALIS 2018 main study include the following:

General Audience Report. This report will present information on the status of the teaching workforce, the conditions of teaching, and the learning environments of schools in the U.S. in comparison to the other international participants, written for a non-specialist, general U.S. audience. This report will present the results of analyses in a clear and non-technical way, conveying how U.S. results compare on the international stage, and what factors, if any, may be associated with the U.S. results.

Survey Operations/Technical Report. This report will document the procedures used in the main study (e.g., sampling, recruitment, data collection, scoring, weighting, and imputation) and discuss any problems encountered. The primary purpose of the main study survey operations/technical report is to document the steps taken by the U.S. in conducting and completing the study. This report will include an analysis of non-response bias, which will assess the presence and extent of bias due to nonresponse. Selected characteristics of respondent schools and teachers will be compared with those of non-respondent schools and teachers to provide information on whether and how they differ from respondents along dimensions for which we have data for the nonresponding units, as required by NCES standards.

Electronic versions of each publication will be made available on the NCES website. Schedules for tabulation and publication of TALIS 2018 results in the U.S. are dependent upon receiving data files from the international sponsoring organization. The expected data collection dates and a tentative reporting schedule are as follows:

Activity	Timeframe
Pilot study (the U.S. will not participate in the pilot study)	May 2016
Begin field test recruitment	October 2016
Field test data collection	February 2017
Deliver raw field test data to international sponsoring organization	March 2017
Receive Field Test Report from international sponsors / Recruit schools for the main study	June – July 2017
Begin main study recruitment	September 2017
Main study data collection	March – May 2018
Receive final data files from international sponsors	November – December 2018
Produce General Audience Report, Survey Operations/Technical Report for the U.S.	February – June 2019

A.17 Display OMB Expiration Date

The OMB expiration date will be displayed on all data collection and recruitment materials.

A.18 Exceptions to Certification Statement

No exceptions are requested to the "Certification for Paperwork Reduction Act Submissions" of OMB Form 83-I.

1International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) of the UNESCO

2 The average hourly earnings of middle school teachers/instructional staff in the May 2016 National Occupational and Employment Wage Estimates sponsored by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is $28.75, of secondary school teachers is $29.46, of noninstructional staff is $22.58, and of principals/education administrators is $45.86. Source: BLS Occupation Employment Statistics, https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_nat.htm#(4) data type: Occupation codes: Middle School Teachers, except Special Education and Career/Technical Education (25-2022), Secondary School Teachers (25-2030); Education, Training, and Library Workers, All Other (Elementary and Secondary Schools) (25-9099); and Education Administrators, Elementary and Secondary Schools (11-9032); accessed on October 6, 2017. If mean hourly wage was not provided it was computed assuming 2,080 hours per year. The combined estimated hourly rate for middle school and secondary school teachers/instructional staff was calculated assuming about 74% of TALIS sampled teachers to be teaching middle school grades and 26% secondary grades [based on Table 2-2 in the U.S. technical report for TALIS that shows 26% of teachers from secondary schools, 35% from middle/junior high schools, and 38% from other (k-12, k-8, etc)].

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