Part A PIAAC Cycle II 2022 Tribal Communications Emergency Package

This is an emergency request (under 5 CFR 1320.13(a)) to approve new recruitment and communication materials to contact six Native American tribal leaders to request the cooperation of their communities in an upcoming data collection.

The Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) is a cyclical, large-scale study of adult skills and life experiences focusing on education and employment. PIAAC is an international study designed to assess adults in different countries over a broad range of abilities, from simple reading to complex problem-solving skills, and to collect information on individuals’ skill use and background. The U.S. will administer the PIAAC 2022 assessment to a nationally representative sample of adults, along with a background questionnaire with questions about their education background, work history, the skills they use on the job and at home, their civic engagement, and sense of their health and well-being. The results are used to compare the skills capacities of the workforce-aged adults in participating countries, and to learn more about relationships between educational background, employment, and other outcomes. PIAAC is coordinated by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and developed by participating countries with the support of the OECD. In the United States, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), within the U.S. Department of Education (ED) conducts PIAAC. NCES has contracted with Westat to administer the PIAAC Cycle II Field Test data collection in the U.S. The United States participated in the PIAAC Main Study data collection in 2012 and conducted national supplement data collections in 2014 and 2017. All three of these collections are part of PIAAC Cycle I, in which 39 countries participated (24 countries in 2012, 9 new countries in 2014, and 5 more new countries in 2017) with close to 200,000 adults assessed across the 39 countries over the three data collections. A new PIAAC cycle is to be conducted internationally every 10 years, and PIAAC Cycle II Main Study data collection will be conducted from September 2022 through April 2023.

In preparation for the main study collection, PIAAC Cycle II began with an Operational Field Test in 2021, in which 32 countries are expected to participate with the primary goal of testing the PIAAC 2022 planned operations (OMB# 1850-0870 v.10). In February 2022, NCES published a Federal Register Notice soliciting 60 days of public comment on the materials for the PIAAC Cycle II 2022 Main Study (87 FR 9330-9331). Upon clearance of this Emergency Submission, the materials contained here will be added to the package of the materials for the PIAAC Cycle II 2022 Main Study and a Federal Register Notice soliciting an additional 30 days of public comment will be published. That final submission (OMB# 1850-0870 v.11) will describe the complete and final plans for the administration of the PIAAC Cycle II 2022 Main Study. For that reason, NCES will not publish a Federal Register Notice soliciting comment solely on these communication materials.

This extremely time-sensitive situation has arisen because, for the first time, part of PIAAC’s U.S. sample for this administration is in tribal lands and territories, and so NCES needs to ask permission and cooperation to enter and collect data in those areas. At the time of the 60-day submission, the primary sampling unit (PSU) selection process had not yet begun. Once the PSUs and secondary sampling units (SSUs) were selected, the geographies were overlaid with information on tribal areas revealing that six tribal territories fell into the sample. The higher-than-expected number of PSUs in tribal territories may be due in part to the augmented Cycle II sample design which facilitates small area estimates and includes at least two PSUs in every state.

A.2 Purposes and Uses of the Data

As mentioned above, this emergency clearance is for one letter to be used to contact six (6) Native American tribal leaders.

A.3 Appropriate Use of Information Technology

The initial delivery of these six letters will be paper letters delivered by Federal Express. Subsequent tribal communication and cooperation will be completed through email and by phone.

A.4 Efforts to Identify Duplication

There is no other way to secure the cooperation and permission of tribal leaders to collect data among their citizens besides direct contact.

A.5 Method Used to Minimize Burden on Small Businesses

No small entities will be contacted as a result of this clearance.

A.6 Frequency of Data Collection

The letter cleared in this emergency package will be sent once to each of the 6 tribal leaders identified in the PIAAC Cycle II 2022 U.S. sampling plan.

A.7 Special Circumstances of Data Collection

The special circumstances identified in the Instructions for Supporting Statement do not apply to this study.

A.8 Consultants outside the Agency

The recruitment activities of PIAAC in the United States are carried out for NCES by Westat. The key contact person related to this activity is Jacquie Hogan, Study Director, Westat, 1600 Research Boulevard, Rockville, Maryland 20850-3129.

A.9 Provision of Payments or Gifts to Respondents

There is no incentive or payment associated with the recruitment and cooperation of tribal leaders for PIAAC Cycle II.

A.10 Assurance of Confidentiality

Because this package is a notification and the beginning of all contact, there is no assurance of confidentiality associated with this package. For confidentiality protections associated with the collection of PIAAC Cycle II 2022 data, please see the full data collection package (OMB# 1850-0870 v.11).

A.11 Sensitive Questions

There are no questions of a sensitive nature in the tribal contact materials in this package.

A.12 Estimated Response Burden

This request is to contact tribal leaders to request cooperation with the PIAAC Cycle II 2022 Full Study, and so the expected burden is extremely minimal. The sample selected includes territories under the leadership of six different tribal leaders, and each leader will receive one letter as included in this package.

The total response burden estimate for special district approvals is based on 5 minutes to engage with each recruitment letter. Based on the estimated hourly rates for all US employees of $28.01¹, and based on 1 total burden hour for the tribal communication activities, the total estimated burden time cost to respondents is $29.

Table 1. Estimates of respondent burden for preliminary field activities

Activity	Sample Size	Estimated Response Rate	Estimated Number of Respondents	Estimated Number of Responses	Average Burden Time per Respondent (Minutes)	Total Burden Hours
Recruitment Activities
Tribal Leaders Outreach	6	100%	6	6	5	1
Total Recruitment Activities	--	--	6	6	--	1

A.13 Estimates of Cost to Respondents

There are no costs to respondents beyond their time to participate. No equipment, printing, or postage charges will be incurred by the participants.

A.14 Cost to the Federal Government

There is no separate estimate for the cost to the federal government of mailing these letters. Those costs will be included in the overall estimates of costs to the federal government reported in the PIAAC Cycle II 2022 Main Study package (OMB# 1850-0870 v.14).

A.15 Reasons for Changes in Response Burden and Costs

This is a new emergency data collection request.

A.16 Publication Plans and Time Schedule

There is no plan to publish the tribal communication materials cleared under this emergency clearance.

A.17 Approval for Not Displaying the Expiration Date for OMB Approval

There is no requirement to include an expiration date on recruitment materials, and so no exemption from a requirement to display the expiration date for OMB approval of the information collection is requested.

A.18 Exceptions to the Certification Statement

No exceptions to the certification statement apply to the tribal communication materials for PIAAC Cycle II.

1 The average hourly earnings of all US employees in the May 2021 National Occupational and Employment Wage Estimates sponsored by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is $28.01 Source: BLS Occupation Employment Statistics, http://data.bls.gov/oes/ Occupation code: All Occupations (00-0000). Accessed on May 9, 2022.

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Part A PIAAC Cycle II 2022 Tribal Communications Emergency Package