NonSub Change - Program Director Survey

To: Kelsi Feltz

Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA)

Office of Management and Budget (OMB)

From: Paula Daneri, PhD

Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation (OPRE)

Administration for Children and Families (ACF)

Date: March 4, 2024

Subject: NonSubstantive Change Request #2 – Financing for Early Care and Education Quality and Access for All (F4EQ) (OMB #0970-0623)

This memo requests approval of nonsubstantive changes to the approved information collection, Financing for Early Care and Education Quality and Access for All (OMB #0970-0623).

Background

On January 3^rd, 2024, we received approval to conduct a nationally descriptive survey data collection for Financing for Early Care and Education Quality and Access for All (F4EQ) (OMB #0970-0623). This project seeks to better understand the landscape of Head Start’s participation in coordinated funding models and the state policy contexts in which Head Start programs make funding decisions. For this portion of the project, we aim to answer research questions through national surveys to two respondent groups: (1) Head Start program directors (“program survey”) and (2) state early care and education (ECE) administrators (“state survey”).

A nonsubstantive amendment (#1) was approved on 1/23/24 after for minor updates to the consent language and surveys were identified for clarification while programming was completed. As the research team conducted final testing on the programmed OMB-approved survey, we identified minor edits to the program director survey that would make items more understandable. In addition, in order to properly implement the proposed experiment to examine whether a pre-token of appreciation affects response rates, we added an initial set of questions to the program director survey that allows respondents selected to receive the pre-token of appreciation to choose a gift card and provide the email address to which the gift card should be sent.

Overview of Requested Changes

Changes to Program Director Survey

During the process of programming the survey, the research team identified several small edits to be made to the survey.

• Inclusion of front-end questions related to receiving the pre-token of appreciation.

• Removal of different definitions for “combine funding” under Pfd_comb.

• The addition of “or difficult” in the stem of Prs_mon.

• Clarification on who receives the instructions under Funding Allocation section.

• Clarification on which items are included in Psv_which, including filling this question in with responses from Pfd_gv and Pfd_nongv instead of Pfd_most. This is because we would inadvertently skip over asking this question of people who might have more than one funding source, but fewer than four.

• Clarification of instructions based on prior responses before Psv_inkind.

• Changing the word “streams” to “sources” in Pta_avail to be consistent with language used throughout the survey.

• Removal of the language that respondents can only use their gift cards online (at the end of the survey).

• Addition of an option for respondents to receive the end-of-survey gift card without providing their email address.

Time Sensitivities

The timeline for this data collection is based on the Head Start program year. The study team is aiming to release a soft launch of the survey this week (March 4, 2024) in order to be able to complete data collection prior to the end of the Head Start program year.