Attachment D_Sources and Justification for Supplemental Baseline Questions_revised 10.2.12

Attachment D: Sources and Justification for the Supplemental Baseline Questions

This attachment presents the sources and justification for the Supplemental Baseline Questions (from Instrument 1). These questions will be added to the PRS as an additional module. See original submission under OMB # 0970-0394 for listing of PRS data elements.

Topic	Source	Justification
Education
Has the participant ever attended any of the following education or training programs? Adult Basic Education (ABE) English as a Second Language (ESL) Vocational, Technical or Trade School (other than college) Classes in how to succeed in school (e.g., college success course) Classes in how to succeed at work (e.g., work habits, communication)	Adapted from ISIS Baseline Information Form (BIF) (Originally adapted from Fragile Families)	Educational attainment is often associated with the basic academic skills necessary to find employment. Basic math and language skills are essential for most occupations, and numerous studies have shown that education is a significant predictor of employment outcomes. Evidence suggests that high school graduates who engage in job search activities do better both in terms of employment rates and on-the-job earnings than non-graduates. Additionally, educational attainment could be a sign of other skills associated with better educational outcomes. Individuals who complete high school may demonstrate more persistence in accomplishing tasks or may be better at socializing or working in group environments. Such “soft” skills could affect both training and employment outcomes. These items will strengthen the evaluation’s baseline measure of participants’ educational attainment. The PRS asks about participants’ highest grade level and whether they have various degrees or certifications, but not if they attended these specified basic academic and soft skills training programs.
Expectations, self-perceptions and motivations
What is the highest level of education that the participant eventually expects to complete? (Choose one category.) No additional school GED or equivalent Regular high school diploma Alternative non-academic credential, including industry-recognized credential, certification of completing vocational training, etc. Associate’s degree (for example, AA, AS) Bachelor’s degree (for example, BA, BS) Graduate (Master’s, Doctoral, or other advanced professional) degree Not reported	Adapted from ISIS BIF (Originally adapted from New Visions)	Individuals’ educational aspirations and motivation influence their education and employment outcomes1. These items capture participants’ expectations for education and employment. We expect that variations in participants’ expectations will be associated with variations in program impacts. These questions are not proxies for data on actual behavior, which will be captured in the follow-up survey. The purpose of these questions is rather to capture baseline educational and employment expectations if the participant does not have the opportunity to benefit from the HPOG program. We expect that variation in individuals’ expectations will be associated with variation in program impacts. Understanding people’s expectations will improve our ability to identify which treatment group members access various components of the HPOG program and which control group members access various non-HPOG supports available to the general public (as well as those who would have accessed services, had they been offered access to the treatment).
Thinking about the near future, does the participant expect to be going to school full-time or part-time if he/she is selected for to participate in HPOG?	Adapted from ISIS Self-Administered Questionnaire (SAQ)
Does the participant expect to be working for pay in the next few months? If yes, how many hours does the participant expect to be working in a typical week?	Adapted from ISIS SAQ
If the participant is not selected to participate in HPOG this year, what are his/her plans for education and work? Does he/she plan to: Enroll in another vocational training program? Enroll in a basic education and training program, such as GED prep, basic English or math, etc.? Complete a regular high school diploma? Enroll in four-year or community college? Seek employment? If yes, does the participant plan to seek employment in the healthcare field?	New question
When it comes to careers, some people are more certain than others that they know where they are headed and how to get there. Please ask the participant how strongly he/she agrees/disagrees that the following statements reflect his/her career situation: (STRONGLY DISAGREES, DISAGREES, AGREES, STRONGLY AGREES). How much does the participant agree that he/she knows: …how to make a plan that will help achieve his/her goals for the next 5 years? …the occupation he/she wants to enter? …the type of organization he/she wants to work for?	Adapted from ISIS SAQ (Originally adapted from the Career Decisions Self-Efficacy Scale Short Form and the Career Exploration Survey)	A key assumption in the career pathways framework is that more effective guidance is needed to foster career knowledge and planning skills and equip students to maximize their access to available supports in pursuing desired training and employment.2 Low-income adults with little exposure to careers or postsecondary training are particularly likely to lack direction and skills for planning careers, obtaining financial aid, getting extra help at school when needed, and identifying appropriate employment opportunities.3 Absent career pathways support services, we expect that participants with weaker initial career orientations will not benefit from other career pathways strategies – such as occupational training and material supports – as much as those with stronger career orientations. Given strong support services, however, we might expect commensurate, or even greater, impacts on training and employment outcomes for participants those with weaker initial career orientations. To measure career directedness, these items elicit participants’ assessments of self-knowledge and skills in several key areas – planning and having a sense of one’s preferred occupation and training. Item (a) was adapted from the Career Exploration Survey, item (b) was adopted from the Career Decisions Self-Efficacy Scale-Short Form, and item (c) was a new item from the ISIS SAQ.
In the past 12 months, please note how often each of the following situations interfered with the participant’s school, work, job search, or family responsibilities: (Never, Almost never, Sometimes, Fairly often, Very often) How often has the participant had problems or difficulties with: Child care arrangements? Transportation? An illness or health condition? Alcohol or drug use?	Adapted from ISIS SAQ (Originally adapted from the Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI) Short Form, the Prime-MD scale, and the Employment, Retention, and Advancement (ERA) baseline study)	Measuring these challenges is important because poverty and its associated financial hardships are associated with elevated levels of a variety of personal and family challenges that can interfere with success at school and work.4 Career pathways initiatives have sought to increase access to services addressing these challenges, services that traditionally have been more abundant in social service settings than in community college and other postsecondary education settings. In addition to providing information essential to developing individual profiles on these dimensions of disadvantage across HPOG sites, baseline measures will support subgroup analyses to test important hypothesized moderating effects. Absent effective interventions, we expect less favorable training and employment impacts among individuals with personal and family challenges than for individuals with fewer such challenges. With effective provisions addressing these problems, we expect more favorable impacts for comparatively more disadvantaged groups.5 To capture key challenges, these items adapt the functional impairments format used to assess mental health and substance abuse problems to several other barriers.6
Please ask the participant how strongly he/she agrees/disagrees with the following statements about his/her work preferences: (Strongly agrees, Agrees, Disagrees, Strongly disagrees) How much does the participant agree that he/she: …will take any job even if the pay is low? …only wants the kind of job that is related to his/her training?	Adapted from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Green Jobs-Health Care Evaluation
Please ask the participant how much a job must pay per hour for it to make sense for him/her to take it? $___.__/hour.	Adapted from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Green Jobs-Health Care Evaluation
In general, some people have an easier or harder time with problems or difficulties. Please ask the participant how he/she would respond to the following statements: (1 = Not at all true 2 = Somewhat true 3 = Mostly true 4 = Entirely true)	Adapted from Schwarzer, R., & Jerusalem, M. (1995). Generalized Self-Efficacy scale.7	Research indicates that self-efficacy is positively related to postsecondary success.8 These items measure participants’ perceptions of their own self-efficacy before entering training. We expect that variation in self-efficacy will be associated with variation in program pathways/choices and completion rates as well as program impacts.
I can always manage to solve difficult problems if I try hard enough.
If someone opposes me, I can find the means and ways to get what I want.
It is easy for me to stick to my aims and accomplish my goals.
I am confident that I could deal efficiently with unexpected events.
Thanks to my resourcefulness, I know how to handle unforeseen situations.
I can solve most problems if I invest the necessary effort.
I can remain calm when facing difficulties because I can rely on my coping abilities.
When I am confronted with a problem, I can usually find several solutions.
If I am in trouble, I can usually think of a solution.
I can usually handle whatever comes my way.
Family member income/benefit receipt
In the past month, did anyone in the participant’s family (his/her spouse or partner and any other relatives who live with him/her) have income or benefits from any of the following sources? (For each yes, about how much was it per month?) Job earnings Child Support (official or unofficial) Family and friends (outside the household) Grants or loans for school Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) General Assistance (GA) Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) / Food Stamps Women, Infants and Children Program (WIC) Social Security Insurance (SSI) Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) Unemployment Insurance (UI) or Worker’s Compensation Refugee Cash Assistance (RCA) Medicaid Subsidized Child Care Section 8 / Public Housing Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) Free or reduced lunch program	Adapted from ISIS BIF (Originally adapted from Supporting Healthy Marriage Baseline)	Having the financial resources to participate in career pathway programs is an important determinant of success. There are many costs associated with participating in career pathway programs, including tuition, the cost of course materials, and, most importantly, the opportunity cost associated with working fewer hours. It is likely that some individuals will be working while they are in career pathways programs. The time they devote to the program necessarily limits the amount of time they can spend earning money to support themselves through regular employment. The PRS collects information on participants’ sources of income and benefits, but does not capture their families’ sources of income and benefits. By asking participants about their families’ financial resources, HPOG-Impact will be able to more accurately capture individuals’ baseline levels of income.
Children
Basic information for each child for whom either the participant or his/her spouse/partner is the legal guardian: (Include only children under the age of 18 who live with the participant at least half the time). Child 1: First name Relationship to participant Biological child Adoptive child Stepchild Foster child Grandchild/great grandchild Other relative (nephew/niece, cousin) Unrelated dependent Child birthdate Amount of time child lives with the participant Full-time (12 months/year) > 9 months/year 6-9 months/year < 6 months/year Who else child lives with Biological parent Adoptive parent Step parent Foster parent Parent’s partner (male) Parent’s partner (female) Grandfather/grandmother Great grandfather/great grandmother Other adult relative 18 years or older (aunt/uncle, cousin, niece/nephew) Other adult non-relative 18 years or older (aunt/uncle, cousin, niece/nephew) Sibling/step sibling under 18 years of age Sibling/step sibling 18 years or older Other relative under 18 years of age (aunt/uncle, cousin, niece/nephew) Other non-relative under 18 years of age	New question - Child identification roster	Adding the household child roster will allow the evaluation team to create a sampling frame for future data collection efforts to measure the impact of career pathway programs on participants’ children. Please see Attachment E for a more detailed justification for measuring the impact of career pathways programs on participants’ children.

1 Buchanan, 2006; Roderick et al., 2009

2 See for example Choitz (2010), Cooper (2010), and Conley (2007).

3 See Long (2010), Roderick et al. (2009), Purnell & Blank (2004), and Matus-Grossman & Gooden (2002).

4 See review in Lee & Vinokur (2007), also Fein & Beecroft (2006), Grossman & Gooden (2002).

5 Some experimental evidence exists supporting these hypotheses. Impacts on earnings and welfare payments in a review of 20 random assignment tests of welfare-to-work programs generally were more favorable for participants with low initial risk of depression compared with those at high initial risk, particularly for programs with an educational focus (Michalopolous & Schwartz 2001). In contrast, a random assignment test of a psycho-educationally focused intervention for recently unemployed job seekers found both reductions in depressive symptoms and somewhat more favorable economic impacts among initially high-risk participants in the short (six months) though not longer (two years) run (Vinokur et al. 2000). There also is some experimental evidence that programs effectively treating substance abuse among low-income adults also produce more favorable employment outcomes. (Morgenstern et al. 2009)

6 E.g., World Health Organization Composite International Diagnostic Interview Short Form (CIDI-SF, see www3.who.int/cidi); Prime-MD, another widely used mental health screening instrument (Spitzer et al. 2000); and the Employment Retention and Advancement baseline form.

7 In J. Weinman, S. Wright, & M. Johnston, Measures in health psychology: A user's portfolio. Causal and control beliefs (pp. 35-37). Windsor, UK: NFER-NELSON.

8 Smith (2010).

Attachment D: Sources and Justification for the Supplemental Baseline Questions  ▌pg. 8