OPRE Study: Early Care and
Education Leadership Study (ExCELS) Descriptive Study
No
material or nonsubstantive change to a currently approved
collection
No
Regular
02/15/2022
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 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 will take
place in spring 2022 and we plan to recruit 120 center-based child
care settings. These will include centers that 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 will include
interviews with each center’s primary site leader and surveys for
select center managers and all teaching staff. To support a
successful data collection with high response rates, ExCELS was
approved to offer a $50 gift card to respondents of a 60-minute
teaching staff survey as part of an experiment with two different
procedures for administering a token of appreciation —a $10 pre-
$40 post gift- card remote structure, or an on-site visit to offer
a $50 gift card upon survey completion—to determine which approach
was more effective and cost efficient at obtaining high response
rates. Results of this experiment were to be shared with OMB and
combined with the results of two experiments that were part of the
Assessing the Implementation and Cost of High Quality Early Care
and Education project (ECE-ICHQ; OMB: 0970-0499) to contribute to a
body of evidence about the effectiveness and efficiency in using
different structures and delivery approaches for tokens of
appreciation to support response from staff in ECE settings. Due to
the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, we seek to remove site-visits from
the data collection effort (only conduct them as-needed to improve
response rates) and, as a result, remove the experiment. In light
of the absence of an experiment, we request a change in the tokens
of appreciation to lower the overall amount provided to teaching
staff from $50 to $40, maintaining a pre-and post-pay structure.
The token of appreciation for center managers would remain
unchanged; these staff were not planned to be part of the
experimental aspect.
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_Incentive and NonSub Change Request_02072022.docx
Teaching staff survey