NonSub Change - NCECDTL's T/TA offerings

To: Jordan Cohen

Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA)

Office of Management and Budget (OMB)

From: Jamie Sheehan

Office of Head Start (OHS)

Administration for Children and Families (ACF)

Date: January 6, 2022

Subject: NonSubstantive Change Request – Generic Information Collection: Standard Evaluation Survey for the National Center for Early Childhood Development, Teaching, and Learning’s (NCECDTL’s) Training and Technical Assistance Offerings (OMB # 0970-0531).

This memo requests approval of nonsubstantive changes to the approved generic information collection (GenIC), “Standard Evaluation Survey for the National Center for Early Childhood Development, Teaching, and Learning’s (NCECDTL’s) Training and Technical Assistance Offerings.” This GenIC was approved under the umbrella generic: Formative Data Collections for ACF Program Support (OMB # 0970-0531).

Background

The standard evaluation surveys conducted by the National Center on Early Childhood Development, Teaching, and Learning (NCECDTL) on behalf of the Office of Head Start (OHS) were approved originally by OMB in June of 2021. Since then, several key developments occurred, resulting in the need to modify this protocol:

• Focus on equity: The OHS has critically prioritized the need to address equity and promote anti-bias in programs. As a result, the National Centers are shifting heavily into incorporating an equity lens in all training and technical assistance provided. Evaluating the effectiveness and usefulness of this equity lens is critical in the ability of NCECDTL to provide training that meets OHS standards and goals for advancing equity.

• Changes to Common Item Bank: The OHS co-leads a cross-National Center Data and Evaluation Workgroup (DEW). As of the August 2021 meeting, the DEW changed the questions to be asked by National Centers as part of their evaluations for training and technical assistance events. These changes reflect (1) the increased focus on equity and (2) previous data analyses on existing questions that demonstrated mixed efficacy. Additionally, OHS has refined the list of roles/titles held by members of the Head Start and Child Care communities; these titles are in the process of being standardized across multiple platforms, including within National Center evaluations. National Centers are expected to comply with these changes quickly and contribute collected data to efforts broadly evaluating the effectiveness of the entire TTA system.

• Reduction in respondent burden: The revision of the questions required by the DEW led to an increase in the number of optional items, but a decrease in the number of questions each respondent would likely answer. Currently, each standard evaluation respondent answers between 20 and 24 questions; the new question bank allows for more flexibility in standard questions, meaning each respondent to a standard evaluation would only answer between 17 and 21 questions.

Overview of Requested Changes

No changes will be made to the data collection timeframe or audience. Respondent burden has been reduced from 10 minutes to 8 minutes. The question bank has been updated to reflect the following changes:

• For the question, “Please select the role that is closest to your position,” the list of selectable roles/titles was revised to be congruous with other OHS data efforts.

• Two standard items were added to the bank; to offset this change, two other standard items were moved to the list of optional questions. The two new standard items offset the need for DTL to include three other items, reducing the length of the survey.

• Six optional questions were added to the bank, all of which focus on evaluating whether the trainings successfully (1) supported diverse cultures, (2) promoted an equitable perspective among staff, and (3) supported the broader creation of equitable spaces.

• The bank now contains all the standard and optional items set forth by the Data and Evaluation workgroup co-led by OHS. The new bank will now (1) contain all questions that must be asked by DTL as part of their standard evaluation, and (2) contain all questions that potentially would need to be collected as part of a cross-National Center evaluation effort.

Time Sensitivities

The National Center would like to incorporate these changes as soon as possible.