OPRE Study: Early Care and
Education Leadership Study (ExCELS) Descriptive Study
No
material or nonsubstantive change to a currently approved
collection
No
Regular
05/19/2022
Requested
Previously Approved
12/31/2023
12/31/2023
1,302
1,302
1,010
1,010
0
0
The Office of Planning, Research, and
Evaluation (OPRE) within the Administration for Children and
Families in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
contracted with Mathematica and its subcontractor, the Institute
for Early Education Leadership and Innovation at the University of
Massachusetts Boston, to conduct the Early Care and Education
Leadership Study (ExCELS). The purpose of ExCELS is to learn about
leadership in center-based early care and education (ECE) settings,
and better understand how leadership might improve the quality of
care and education centers provide and outcomes for staff,
children, and families. The ExCELS descriptive study was launched
in March 2022 with a plan to recruit 120 center-based ECE settings.
These centers need to have at least one primary site leader (e.g.,
center director) in the building, receive funding from Head Start
or the Child Care and Development Fund, and serve children whose
ages range from birth to age 5 (but who are not yet in
kindergarten). Data collection includes interviews with each
center’s primary site leader and surveys for select center managers
and all teaching staff. Data from the descriptive study will help
develop a psychometrically sound measure of leadership. The study
design includes a purposive sample of 120 center-based ECE settings
from four states, selected to achieve variation that is critical
for assessing the theory of change for ECE leadership and for
psychometric analyses to develop a measure of leadership. The
statistical precision of the planned analysis rests primarily on
the number of staff respondents to surveys. The team has based
assumptions of survey completes on the number of participating
centers, the average number of staff in center-based settings, and
a high response rate. A sample of 120 centers will support the
ability to achieve sample targets for survey respondents that are
needed to support the planned analysis. Since launching
recruitment, the study team has had to conduct recruitment calls
with a larger number of centers to engage one in the study. We are
seeing that 30% of centers with which the team has conducted a
recruitment call are agreeing to participate in the study. Centers
are reporting being short-staffed, having many demands on their
time, and continued staff stress and fatigue, due in part to the
ongoing pandemic. We are also finding that larger numbers of
centers are being found ineligible than anticipated (30% of those
agreeing to participate after the recruitment call). This has
required conducting engagement interviews with a larger number of
centers than planned to successfully identify eligible centers for
the study. We are requesting an increase to the burden estimates to
allow for outreach to a larger number of centers and to account for
potential attrition at different stages of engagement. These
increases will help us complete data collection with 120 centers to
support the study goals. The team has also made three adjustments
to the sampling selection and recruitment targets to be more
flexible in bringing centers into the study and determining
eligibility.
US Code:
42
USC 9835 Name of Law: Head Start Act § 640
US Code: 42
USC 9858 Name of Law: Child Care and Development Block Grant
Act of 1990 § 658O
PL:
Pub.L. 113 - 186 9 Name of Law: Child Care and Development
Block Grant Act of 1990 as amended by the CCDBG Act of 2014
US Code: 42
USC 9844 Name of Law: Head Start Act § 649
On behalf of this Federal agency, I certify that
the collection of information encompassed by this request complies
with 5 CFR 1320.9 and the related provisions of 5 CFR
1320.8(b)(3).
The following is a summary of the topics, regarding
the proposed collection of information, that the certification
covers:
(i) Why the information is being collected;
(ii) Use of information;
(iii) Burden estimate;
(iv) Nature of response (voluntary, required for a
benefit, or mandatory);
(v) Nature and extent of confidentiality; and
(vi) Need to display currently valid OMB control
number;
If you are unable to certify compliance with any of
these provisions, identify the item by leaving the box unchecked
and explain the reason in the Supporting Statement.
ExCELS_NonSub Change Request_05192022.docx
Teaching staff survey