NonSub Change Request - Pretesting and Programming Updates

To: Jordan Cohen

Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA)

Office of Management and Budget (OMB)

From: Alysia Blandon

Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation (OPRE)

Administration for Children and Families (ACF)

Date: March 10, 2021

Subject: NonSubstantive Change Request – Survey of National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being (NSCAW) Adopted Youth, Young Adults, Adults and Adopted Parents (OMB #0970-0555)

This memo requests approval of nonsubstantive changes to the approved information collection, Survey of National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being (NSCAW) Adopted Youth, Young Adults, Adults and Adopted Parents (OMB #0970-0555).

Background

In September 2020, OMB approved the new information collection request (ICR) for the Survey of National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being (NSCAW) Adopted Youth, Young Adults, Adults and Adopted Parents. This is a descriptive study designed to help OPRE and the Children’s Bureau understand the extent of post adoption instability events that occur in families who have adopted children who have exited the foster care system. This study also seeks to understand risk and protective factors associated with post adoption instability. The study will conduct web or telephone surveys with adopted youth, young adults, and adults as well as their adoptive parents who were participants in the first or second cohort of the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being (NSCAW I, II; OMB #0970-0202). The study includes plans to conduct in-person tracing and locating activities with candidate NSCAW I and II respondents. These in-person activities have not been possible during the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, the main study data collection activity has been postponed until the spring of 2021.

The ICR that OMB approved in September included two survey instruments—Instrument 1, the Survey of Adopted Youth, Young Adults and Adults (SAY) and Instrument 2, the Survey of Adoptive Parents (SAP). The project team has pre-tested both instruments. The SAY was tested with 5 adopted adults and the SAP was tested with 5 adoptive parents. Pretesting results pointed to areas in both instruments where terms could be clarified or defined, item language re-worded to increase respondent comprehension, and response options that needed to be consolidated or expanded to better represent respondent experiences. Pretest results also indicated that the surveys were too long and could benefit from eliminating low priority items to reduce respondent burden. Since September 2020, the project team has also programmed these instruments for web and telephone administration. Instrument programming identified areas where item wording or response options should be changed to support a telephone administration mode and areas where routing logic could be more clearly specified.

Overview of Requested Changes

As a result of pretesting and programming, we request the following nonsubstantive changes to the SAY (Instrument 1) and the SAP (Instrument 2).

• Deleting lower-priority items to reduce the overall burden/administration time and the risk of respondent breakoffs.

• Adding an item to each instrument to assess a respondent’s preferred pronoun so that subsequent items may be tailored to each respondent’s preference.

• Streamlining response options to reduce the overall burden/administration time and to better allow items to be administered by telephone.

• Adding new response options to items where pretesting showed existing response options did not adequately capture pretest respondent experiences.

• Adding definitions to constructs referenced in certain items where pretesting showed that respondents did not understand the terms used.

• Rewording items to increase respondent comprehension where pretest respondents indicated items were difficult to follow.

• Consistently referencing “birth or biological” mother/father/parent in all items since pretest respondents used both terms to describe biological parents.

• Adding opening instructions to certain modules as pretest respondents indicated that it would be helpful to understand the purpose of various instrument sections prior to completing the item series.

• Correcting item routing logic or skip patterns where errors were noted during instrument programming.

• Transforming items with lengthy response options into a yes/no format for each individual response option to facilitate telephone administration and reformatting these lengthy item response options into a grid format for web administration.

Revisions do not change the original estimated burden, but instead better align with the original estimates. Revised versions of the SAY and the SAP are included with this change request.

Time Sensitivities

Although we received OMB approval in September, we delayed the start of data collection due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We now plan to begin data collection in May in order to complete data collection, data analysis, and reporting within the remaining time of our contract.