FastTrack GenIC - Feedback for the Adolescent Development Products and We Think Twice™ Digital Media Campaign

09Request for Approval under the “Generic Clearance for the Collection of Customer Feedback” (OMB Control Number: 0970-0401)

T ITLE OF INFORMATION COLLECTION: Feedback for the Adolescent Development Products and We Think Twice™ Digital Media Campaign

PURPOSE: The Family and Youth Services Bureau has a social media campaign called We Think Twice™. The purpose of the planned activities is to gather feedback on proposed products, messages, and concepts to inform a creative campaign focused on promoting positive youth development, avoiding risky behaviors, setting goals, and engaging in healthy relationships as well as other related topics. Similar activities were approved under this umbrella generic on May 16, 2023. Since approval, the campaign team is looking at several new products and would like to expand the base of questions beyond what was previously approved.

The work conducted under this generic clearance has been and will continue to be used to inform the development of youth materials and messages.

The contractor (RTI International) will conduct all feedback and information collection related to the proposed approach. Questions will be asked of youth to facilitate recruitment of participants, who we call “Insiders,” into the voluntary platform. These initial questions are intended to help us recruit and engage participants who represent a diverse sample of adolescents in the U.S. (racial/ethnic background, geographic area, age, gender diversity, and educational diversity). (See accompanying “Insider Registration Questions.”). This is necessary to gather feedback from the intended audiences for the We Think Twice™ campaign.

DESCRIPTION OF RESPONDENTS: Respondents include diverse groups of youth and young adults aged 13–21 years old from different regions around the U.S., with targeted recruitment of high-risk youth to help ensure a wide range of youth voices are heard.

TYPE OF COLLECTION: (Check one)

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

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

[] Focus Group [X] Other: Remote product/message testing

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: Stacey Little, Program Manager, Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Program

To assist review, please provide answers to the following question:

Personally Identifiable Information:

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

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

3. If Yes, has an up-to-date System of Records Notice (SORN) been published? [ ] Yes [ ] No

PII (including first name, race/ethnicity, zip code, date of birth, and email), may be collected from participants during registration. These data are collected to help us ensure the participants recruited and engaged represent a diverse sample of adolescents in the U.S. (racial/ethnic, geographic, age, gender diversity, and educational diversity). The data are also needed to communicate directly with individuals, such as for providing them with their gift cards. See Appendix A for the online registration questionnaire.

Gifts or Payments:

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

Consistent with the prior approval in May 2023 and the ongoing work in this area, participants will be offered a token of appreciation of up to $15 as a gift card for food (e.g., Starbucks), music (e.g., iTunes), or general merchandise (e.g., Amazon) for sharing their feedback. Because participants often have competing demands for their time, tokens of appreciation are used to encourage participation. The amounts for this project were determined through discussions with the contractor, recruitment firms, and FYSB staff with expertise in recruiting participants and conducting interviews about avoiding risky behavior and similar health topics. Participants will receive the amount in appreciation for their participation in up to 1 hour of activities on the remote platform.

Numerous empirical studies have shown that tokens of appreciation can significantly increase response rates.ⁱ Tokens of appreciation are also necessary to ensure that there is sufficient representation from certain groups that are more difficult to recruit such as low socio-economic groups and high-risk populations.ⁱⁱ Appropriate amounts help encourage youth to participate and provide feedback that contributes to the development of clear, persuasive messages and products designed for youth to promote healthy behaviors while discouraging risky behaviors, consistent with the project’s goals.

BURDEN HOURS

Each year, we expect that approximately 70 participants in the online panel will complete up to 75 activities, which take about 20 minutes each to complete. Participants can choose to complete as many or as few activities as they want, from just one activity or every activity that is posted.

Type of Collection	No. of Respondents	Annual Frequency per Response	Hours per Response	Total Hours
Insider Registration Questions (for new registrants)	30	1	10 minutes (0.17 hours)	5
Remote testing	70	75	20 minutes (0.33 hours)	1750
Total Respondents and Hours:	70			1755

FEDERAL COST: The estimated annual cost to the federal government is $39,000 per year for 3 years

Item/Activity	Details	$ Amount
FYSB oversight of contractor and project	10% of FTE: GS-13 Program Specialist and 15% of FTE for contractor staff	$4,000 $5,000
Recruitment, data collection including incentives, materials, online platform hosting, analysis, travel, overhead and reporting (contractor)	Labor hours and ODCs	$30,000
Total per year for a total of 3 years		$39,000

If you are conducting a focus group, survey, or plan to employ statistical methods, please 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?

Participants are part of an online, nonprobability purposeful panel. Input they provide is not generalizable to the general population. Panel participants are recruited through a variety of means, including both Instagram and outreach to FYSB-funded grantees. The goal is to have a diverse group of youth and young adults aged 13–21 from different regions around the U.S., with targeted recruitment of high-risk youth to ensure their voices are heard. Of note, the community of youth for this contract includes and expands the community of youth from the previous Sexual Risk Avoidance contract, which had an existing approval.

Participant feedback consists of up to 75 asynchronous remote testing activities per year. An average of 5-6 remote testing activities will be posted monthly, or up to 75 annually, to the online platform of youth panelists, called “Insiders,” who have created logins and avatar profiles to retain anonymity. These youth panelists will have the opportunity to participate in as few or as many of the monthly activities as they want. Most youth participants will be recruited through social media advertisements. In some cases, the contractor may supplement the youth population from youth-serving grantee organizations.

Information may be collected using a standardized registration instrument to facilitate recruitment of participants into the project for remote testing. The registration questions will be completed through the online platform as part of private profile set-up. The recruiters will then collect or confirm the names, emails, and phone numbers of the eligible individuals who agree to participate. Recruiters will also confirm that youth assent and parental consent (if applicable) forms have been turned in before granting full access to the platform. This information will be used to send participants confirmation of their participation in the data collection. All registration information will be stored on a secure drive and will not be connected with the participant’s ID or other information for the online system.

Statistical power is not applicable because the intent of this gathering information is for feedback and design purposes only and is not considered research.

Administration of the Instrument

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

[X] Web-based or other forms of Social Media

[ ] Telephone

[ ] In-person

[ ] Mail

[ ] Other, Explain

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

A team member will manage the online testing panel/community by adding the activities, rewarding points to members for completion, analyzing the responses, and submitting electronic gift cards upon completion of activities. However, all activities will be remote and unmoderated, meaning participants can complete them at any time without interaction with our project staff.

Please make sure that all instruments, instructions, and scripts are submitted with the request.

i Abdelazeem, B. et al. (2023). Does usage of monetary incentive impact the involvement in surveys? A systematic review and meta-analysis of 46 randomized controlled trials. PLoS One, 18.

ii Smith, M.G. et al. (2019). Effectiveness of incentives and follow-up on increasing survey response rates and participation in field studies. BMC Medical Research Methodology, 19.

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