OMB passback Qs and As

Memorandum United States Department of Education

Institute of Education Sciences

National Center for Education Statistics

DATE: June 3, 2010

TO: Shelly Martinez, OMB

FROM: Patricia Etienne, NCES

THROUGH: Kashka Kubzdela, NCES

RE: Responses to 6-1-10 OMB Passback for NAEP 2011 Wave I Clearance

1. The confidentiality pledge on the teacher and school questionnaires uses “NCES” but we do not see anywhere where it is spelled out.  Can you either point us to where it is spelled out prior to its use or spell it out in the pledge?

We have spelled out NCES (National Center for Education Statistics) in the pledge for student, teacher, and school questionnaires, as shown below in green. If OMB would like us to submit the 9 pdf files affected by this change for upload into ROCIS, we will be happy to do so. Otherwise, we will assure that this change will show in all of the printed NAEP 2011 questionnaires.

A project of the Institute of Education Sciences.

The information you provide will be used for statistical purposes only. In

accordance with the Confidential Information Protection provisions of

Title V, Subtitle A, Public Law 107-347 and other applicable Federal

laws, your responses will be kept confidential and will not be disclosed in

identifiable form to anyone other than employees or agents. By law, every National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) employee as well as every

agent, such as contractors and NAEP coordinators, has taken an oath and is

subject to a jail term of up to 5 years, a fine of up to $250,000, or both if he

or she willfully discloses ANY identifiable information about you.

OMB NO. 1850-0790 APPROVAL EXPIRES 05/31/2013

2. There is no confidentiality pledge provided with the student questionnaires.  Please provide.

The student confidentiality pledge was part of the original submission (with the cover pages provided as separate attachments). It followed the cover page, and contents page for each part. It is attached as a revised file in response to the revision under question 1 above:

1. The student confidentiality revision applies to the student confidentiality pages that are listed on the third page of each cover section. Part 1 of 3, Part 2 of 3, and Part 3 of 3 each contain a cover page, a page with the file names, and a student confidentiality page.

2. The teacher confidentiality revision would apply to the second page of Parts 1d, 2e, 2f, and 2g.

3. The school confidentiality revision would apply to the second page of Parts 1e and 2h.

3.  On the 12^th grade economic questionnaire, we would like to know how NCES would like a student to respond to questions 5 and 6 if they took courses in summer school.

A summer school class should be counted in answering questions 5 and 6 if the student’s most recent course that included economics was taken in summer school.  We will make sure to include this information in the Question by Questions (QxQs), developed once all clearances are in place (QxQs for the 2011 assessments will be completed in September 2010), which are used by field staff as a guide to answering questions that students may have about items on the student questionnaires.

 4.      Also, the 6^th response option in item 6 does not seem to fit given that the question stem doesn’t ask about “this year.”

The item was revised by deleting option F (see the attached revised questionnaire).

5. Please provide a justification for asking 12^th graders about work employment on the background questionnaire.

Many students learn economic concepts and knowledge outside of the classroom, including in the workplace. The “Economics Framework for the 2006 National Assessment of Educational Progress” (page 10) acknowledges that “. . . many students’ exposure to economics is limited to the instruction they receive as part of a class other than economics or what they learn from their parents, the media, or their own employment.” In recognizing that a student’s understanding of economics can be derived from experiences other than formal study, the Framework (page 37) also requires that 20 to 30 percent of the items be set in “An individual and household context, including items related to personal finance (i.e., earning, spending, saving, and borrowing, and investing).” In addition to asking about a student’s employment, other background questions ask about the student’s course work and use of the media or Internet to gain economic knowledge. Other questions ask about clubs and extra-curricular activities. Collectively, the questionnaire attempts to measure student’s exposure to economics and economic concepts both in an out of school.