Transitions OMB PartA Supp Statement_2024_07-18_post-60-day_clean rev

The Institute of Education Sciences (IES) within the U.S. Department of Education (ED) requests clearance from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to conduct new data collection activities for the Evaluation of Transition Supports for Youth with Disabilities study. The evaluation will provide rigorous findings about the effectiveness, implementation, and costs of two new strategies for supporting youth with disabilities (YWD) and their families to prepare for a successful transition from high school to adult life.

This is a revision to the original information collection request and requests clearance to measure outcomes and assess the implementation and cost-effectiveness of each strategy, specifically: (a) collection of participating students’ individualized education programs (IEPs), (b) student surveys, (c) school staff surveys, and (d) district cost interviews and staffing records. The original request approved in May 2023 was primarily related to site recruitment (see ICR summary here and supporting statement here).

A.1. Circumstances Making Collection of Information Necessary

A.1.a. Need for an Evaluation of New Transition Supports for YWD

YWD continue to lag their peers in rates of postsecondary education enrollment (61% vs. 84%; National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2019) and employment (35% vs. 78% for individuals aged 25–34; McFarland et al., 2017). A central goal of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is to prepare students for post-school success by requiring states and districts to offer education, services, and resources to help YWD prepare for education, work, and independent living after high school. To achieve this objective, a key requirement of IDEA is that student IEPs include plans for transition activities related to their post-school goals.

While most states meet federal compliance requirements for transition planning,¹ many YWD do not participate in transition-related activities and supports that could help them achieve their post-school goals (Lipscomb et al., 2017). This may be due to barriers related to YWD having insufficient information and resources to first develop and then apply self-determination skills (such as choice-making, goal setting, and preparation and initiative for reaching goals) to transition planning and transition activities (Lipscomb et al., 2017; Trainor et al., 2020). A transition supports strategy designed to address these barriers has not been rigorously evaluated on a large scale. The purpose of this evaluation is to determine whether such a strategy improves students’ and families’ preparation for achieving post-school goals.

A.1.b. Theory of Action for New Transition Support Strategies to be Evaluated

The Evaluation of Transition Supports will study two strategies (SDLMI-Transition and SDLMI-Transition with Mentoring) designed to build students’ self-determination skills and help students apply self-determination skills to their transition plans. These strategies encompass three core components that research identifies as promising supports (e.g., Mazzotti et al., 2021; Rowe et al., 2021) and that may mitigate the key barriers described in Section A.1.a:

Support to develop self-determination skills;
Support for applying self-determination skills to transition planning; and
Support for engaging in transition activities.

Exhibit A.1 presents the theory of action for how these components are expected to improve post-school outcomes based on past research and shows the main intermediate outcomes that are hypothesized to lead to better post-school outcomes.

Exhibit A.1. Theory of Action for Transition Supports Evaluated in this Study

This study will evaluate two strategies that encompass these core components.

Strategy 1 (SDLMI-Transition) is based on a model of self-determination instruction designed to help students to plan and pursue their transition goals. This strategy includes two main supports:
- An instructor-led curriculum with structured lesson content and activity guides focused on supporting students to develop self-determination skills, including making choices and decisions, setting appropriate short- and long-term goals, making plans to attain their goals, tracking progress, and adjusting their goals and plans as needed.
- Individualized instruction to apply self-determination skills to transition planning, by helping students evaluate their transition needs, advocate for their goals and needs to be reflected in their IEP/transition plan, and develop strategies for pursuing their goals via IEP and transition planning meetings.
Strategy 2 (SDLMI-Transition with Mentoring) includes Strategy 1 supports plus the following support for students to enact their transition plans:
- Individualized mentoring to help students engage in and take active steps toward post-school goals, by working with students to identify relevant community and school resources, determine resources best aligned with their goals, and map out a step-by-step plan for participating in activities that can allow them to make progress towards their desired post-school outcomes.

Both strategies will include systematic, coordinated family engagement, in addition to student instruction and mentoring. Family engagement supports will seek to help families understand what students are learning/doing; foster an understanding of students’ goals at home; encourage appropriately high expectations; and help families be actively involved in IEP/transition planning and (for Strategy 2) facilitate students’ participation in goal-related activities.

The two strategies will be delivered by instructors who are hired for the study and supported by a provider team. The provider team will provide well-documented, replicable program delivery materials, trainings, monitoring, and technical assistance to ensure consistent and comprehensive delivery of the strategies to all participating YWD. Instructors will work with students, families, and IEP teams to deliver both strategies during two school years, 2024‒2025 and 2025‒2026. Additionally, for Strategy 2 only, instructors will continue working with students and families during the summer between the two school years.

A.2. Purposes and Uses of the Data

To evaluate the effectiveness of the two strategies described above, the evaluation will use an experimental design to measure impacts, implementation, and cost-effectiveness for students who have IEPs and are approximately two years from high school graduation as of Fall 2024. A sample of approximately 3,000 such students in up to 100 schools and 16 districts will be randomly assigned to one of three conditions: Strategy 1, Strategy 2, or a business-as-usual (BAU) control group. The study will identify and conduct outreach to eligible students, and will randomly assign approximately 3,000 students who consent to participate in the study. (See Part B for more information about the selection of the study sample.)

ED’s IES has contracted with the American Institutes for Research (AIR) and its partners, the University of Kansas, University of North Carolina Charlotte (UNCC), and Social Policy Research Associates (SPRA)—collectively referred to hereafter as the study team—to carry out the evaluation and address three primary research questions shown in Exhibit A.2.

Exhibit A.2. Primary Research Questions That the Study Will Address

RQ#	Research Question
1	Is instruction in self-determination skills and how to apply them to transition planning effective in improving the intermediate and post-school outcomes of students with disabilities?
2	Is offering individual mentoring along with self-determination skill instruction effective?
3	What is the added benefit and cost of providing individual mentoring support?

The study team will answer the RQs by collecting information about baseline characteristics of the sample, the service contrast among students assigned to each strategy and the BAU group, students’ intermediate and post-school outcomes, and implementation and cost of each strategy. Data will be collected starting in Fall 2024 and measure student outcomes through Spring 2028.² Exhibit A.3 describes the purpose of the data collection activities for which approval is being requested in this revision to the original request. Additional data collection activities included in the original information collection request or not requiring OMB clearance are shown in Exhibit A.4.

Exhibit A.3. Description of Data Collection Activities Covered by Current Information Collection Request

Data Source	Sample	Respondent	Mode and Timing	Purpose/use of data
Students’ IEPs	Participating students	District data staff (one per district)	IEPs of participating students shared by district staff in Fall 2024 and Spring 2026.	Used to measure select intermediate outcomes in the theory of action (including post-school goals, alignment of IEP transition services with post-school goals, and student involvement in managing progress toward goals).
Student surveys	Participating students	Students	Electronic surveys administered in school in Fall 2024, Fall 2025, and Spring 2026.	Used to measure select intermediate outcomes in the theory of action (including self-determination, post-school expectations, involvement in transition planning, participation in transition activities, and understanding of resources needed to make progress toward postschool goals).
School staff surveys	Participating schools	School staff (one per school)	Electronic form completed by school staff in Fall 2024 and Spring 2026.	Used to measure select intermediate outcomes in the theory of action (including student participation in activities to prepare for post-school goals and student and parent engagement in transition planning).
District cost interviews and cost and staffing records	Participating districts	District administrators (one per district)	Information from virtual interviews conducted in Spring 2025 and Spring 2026 and entered into an electronic form, and cost and staffing records provided during the interview.	Used to measure district and school costs to support implementation.

Exhibit A.4. Summary of Additional Data Collection Activities

Data Source	Sample	Purpose/use of data	OMB clearance status
Data Used for Outreach and Consent During the Study Enrollment Period
Study consent forms	Eligible students	Used to secure informed consent for participating in the study and data collection activities and to acquire student Social Security numbers (SSNs) necessary to obtain post-school outcomes data to address the study’s primary questions.^a	Primary data collection approved in original version of the information collection request
Interviews with nonparticipating families	Families that decline to be in the study	Used to identify and categorize main reasons that parents/guardians or students do not wish to be in the study (among families who decline to participate). Understanding whether families declined to participate due to the request for student SSNs, features of the two strategies, or other concerns is critical to informing future rigorous studies of YWD in high school.	Primary data collection approved in original version of the information collection request
District contextual information forms	Participating districts	Used to describe districts’ transition processes, programs, and practices at baseline in Fall 2024.	Primary data collection approved in original version of the information collection request
Data on Students’ Baseline and Follow-Up Outcomes Used to Evaluate Effectiveness
District/school records for students^b	Eligible students / participating students	Information for eligible students: used for outreach and consent during the study enrollment period (Spring to Fall 2024) and to summarize how eligible students compare to study participants at that time. Information for participating students: used to confirm student attendance at study schools during the implementation period (Fall 2024 to Spring 2026) and obtain information about students’ personally identifiable information (PII)^a at baseline; demographic, disability, and socioeconomic characteristics at baseline; prior test scores at baseline; and outcomes related to progress towards graduation from start of the implementation period up through Spring 2026.	Primary data collection approved in original version of the information collection request
Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA) at ED	Participating students	Used to measure Vocational Rehabilitation service participation outcomes from Fall 2024 through Spring 2026.	Records that do not require OMB clearance
Federal Student Aid (FSA) office at ED	Participating students	Used to measure outcomes related to financial aid applications and postsecondary enrollment from Fall 2024 through Spring 2028.	Records that do not require OMB clearance
National Student Clearinghouse (NSC)	Participating students	Used to measure postsecondary enrollment outcomes from Fall 2024 through Spring 2028.	Records that do not require OMB clearance
National Directory of New Hires (NDNH)	Participating students	Used to measure earnings and employment outcomes from 2024:Q4 through 2028:Q2.	Records that do not require OMB clearance
Data on Implementation and Cost
Training and orientation completion records	Strategy 1/Strategy 2 instructors	Used to measure fidelity of participation in initial training (Summer/Fall 2024) and booster training (Summer/Fall 2025) for study instructors and orientations for staff in study schools.	Records that do not require OMB clearance
Provider team records of strategy delivery, strategy support, and site visits to check implementation progress	Strategy 1/Strategy 2 instructors and students	Used to measure fidelity of instructors’ activities with students, families, and IEP teams; the provider team’s technical assistance to instructors; and the status of implementation and challenges observed over the implementation period (Fall 2024 to Spring 2026).	Records that do not require OMB clearance
AIR accounting system database	Provider team staff and Strategy 1/Strategy 2 instructors	Used to measure the wages/benefits of instructors, and the costs of supporting implementation from Summer 2024 to Spring 2026.	Records that do not require OMB clearance

^a The study team will use student SSNs and other PII to obtain records of student outcomes from ED offices, NSC and NDNH.

^b ED will submit an extension request to OMB for additional annual extracts of student records from districts/schools to be collected through 2028; this planned extract does not factor into the burden estimates reported in this clearance request.

A.3. Use of Technology to Reduce Burden

In addition to using available secondary data sources when feasible, the study team will use information technology where possible and appropriate to reduce burden on respondents. The study team will take the following steps to reduce burden for the data collection activities covered by the current information collection request:

Students’ IEPs. The study team will collect IEPs from district staff for participating students. The study team will provide schools access to a secure file transfer system hosted by AIR to which district staff will upload IEPs for each student.
Student surveys. The study team will provide the survey in multiple formats (electronically for as many students as possible, but also paper) and languages to enable students to complete the form in a manner easiest for them. Appendix B contains the current, English-language version of the survey.
School staff surveys. The study team will provide the survey in electronic format. The study team will prepopulate the school staff surveys with available information on students, as shown in Appendix C. This approach will reduce the burden on school staff by reducing the amount of information they need to enter for each student.
District cost interviews and staffing records. The study team will obtain all district staffing records in an electronic format via a secure file transfer system hosted by AIR. As shown in Appendix D, requests for district records will detail the information needed. To further reduce the burden on district staff, the study team will accept information in formats that do not match our requested specifications, if more convenient for districts; study analysts will work with data as provided by districts.

A.4. Efforts to Avoid Duplication

When possible, the study will use secondary data sources to address the study RQs in Exhibit A.2 and reduce the amount of information being requested from study participants. For example, the study team will request IEP records from district staff and then use the protocol shown in Appendix A to code the IEPs for each student, so that district staff will not have to extract specific information from each IEP. More generally, the data collection activities shown in Exhibits A.3 and A.4 capture information not available from existing sources or from the other primary study data collection activities.

A.5. Methods to Minimize Burden on Small Businesses and Other Small Entities

The study will not collect information from small businesses. The primary entities for this study are districts and schools within those districts. The study may include some small districts or schools, even though the study team has set minimum thresholds on the numbers of eligible students with IEPs in the districts and schools targeted for recruitment (per Part B).

The data collection plan and procedures are designed to minimize the burden on small districts or schools. For example, as indicated in Exhibit A.3 and Section A.3, the study team will provide ways for district or school staff to share data electronically.

A.6. Consequences of Not Collecting Data

The data collections described in this submission will be used to measure intermediate outcomes to evaluate the new transition support strategies described in Section A.1.b. If the study team does not collect these data, ED will be unable to provide policymakers, practitioners, and other stakeholders with new evidence to guide future improvements to the transition planning process specified by IDEA. Without the student survey, IEPs, and school staff survey, ED would be unable to describe the potential intermediate effects of the strategies on participating students and families. This would limit the interpretability and potential relevance of research findings for stakeholders who wish to learn from the study. Additionally, without district cost interviews and staffing records, the study team would be unable to learn about the work the districts did to prepare for implementing the two strategies, and what resources and support the districts provided to support the implementation of each strategy, all of which are critical to understanding the cost of implementing the transition support strategies.

A.7. Special Circumstances Relating to the Guidelines of 5 CFR 1320.5

No special circumstances apply to this study.

A.8. Federal Register Comments and Consultations Beyond the Agency

A.8.a. Federal Register Announcement

The 60-day Federal Register notice was published on March 29, 2024, Vol. 89., No. 62, page 22133. A correction to the notice with the correct end date for the 60-day period was republished on April 4, 2024, Vol. 89., No. 66, page 23573. No public comments were received during the 60-day comment period.

A 30-day Federal Register notice to request additional public comments was published on July 22, 2024, Vol 89., No. 140, page 59068.

A.8.b. Consultants Beyond the Agency

To inform the study design, an external Technical Working Group (TWG) was convened that included the individuals listed in Exhibit A.5 with expertise in special education, transition supports for youth with disabilities, measurement/psychometrics, and evaluation methodology. To date, the TWG members have convened once as a group to discuss the study design and data collection plan. Project staff consult TWG members individually or in small groups on an as-needed basis. In addition, there will be two additional meetings of the TWG to inform the study’s interpretation of preliminary findings and ensure findings are relevant to policymakers and program stakeholders.

Exhibit A.5. Technical Working Group Members

Name	Organization
Bonnie Boaz	Arkansas Transition Services
Sun-Joo Cho	Vanderbilt University
Jade Gingerich	Maryland Department of Disabilities
Sam Gonzalez	Texas Education Service Center, Region 20
Teresa Grossi	Indiana University
Deanne Unruh	University of Oregon
Lauren Lindstrom	University of California, Davis
Allison Lombardi	University of Connecticut
Richard Luecking	University of Maryland
Keith Smolkowski	Oregon Research Institute
Kendra L. Williams-Diehm	University of Oklahoma

A.9. Payment or Gifts to Respondents

School staff will receive a small incentive to compensate them for taking time to complete the survey on each student participating in the study. Offering compensation to school staff will help achieve high response rates on the surveys that measure intermediate outcomes. The incentive will be valued at $30 per hour of school staff time, prorated after the first hour to the nearest 15 minutes. The incentive amount is aligned with National Center for Education Evaluation (NCEE) guidance stating that incentives should be calculated based on estimated hourly wages derived from annual wages reported in the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook (NCEE, 2022). We used the most recently reported average annual wage for high school teachers, $62,360 per year, to calculate the approximate hourly rate.

Providing incentives is important in federal studies, given the recognized burden and need for high response rates (Berry, Pevar, & Zander-Contugno, 2008; Singer & Kulka, 2002). The use of incentives in educational settings, in particular, have been shown to be effective (Dillman 2007; Messer & Dillman, 2011; Singer & Ye, 2013). For example, in the Reading First Impact Study commissioned by IES, monetary incentives had significant effects on response rates among teachers. A substudy requested by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on the effect of incentives on survey response rates for teachers showed significantly higher response rates when an incentive of $15 or $30 was offered to teachers, as opposed to no incentive (NCEE, 2005).

A.10. Assurances of Confidentiality Provided to Respondents

The study team will conduct all data collection activities in full compliance with ED regulations and requirements to maintain the confidentiality of data obtained on private persons and to protect the rights and welfare of human research subjects, per the Education Science Reform Act of 2002 (Title 1, Part E, Section 183). Data collection activities will also be conducted in compliance with other Federal regulations, including the Privacy Act of 1974, P.L. 93-579, 5 USC 552 a; the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974, 20 USC 1232g, 34 CFR Part 99; and related regulations, including but not limited to: 41 CFR Part 1-1 and 45 CFR Part 5b.

The information provided by or about participants during the consenting process and collection of student records (included in the original request) will contain participant-level personally identifiable information (PII). This includes names, date of birth, and Social Security numbers (SSNs). This information is necessary to ensure that the study team can link participants to their corresponding administrative data in order to measure students’ use of Vocational Rehabilitation services, use of federal student aid, college enrollment, and work outcomes. SSNs are necessary for matching to collect administrative data on the use of Vocational Rehabilitation services and on work outcomes such as employment and earnings; no other alternative approaches are available to reliably obtain this information. Relying on matching using only name and date of birth (or similar techniques) would lead to the study’s inability to match administrative data for a high proportion of participants, an unacceptably high uncertainty in match success, or both. The study team will share study participants’ information with IES so that IES and its designated contractors may also collect administrative data about students’ later outcomes. The sharing of information with IES and other sources for these purposes are described to participants in the informed consent form (included in original request).

AIR and its research partners will protect the full privacy and confidentiality of all data collected for the study and will use it for research purposes only. The AIR project director will ensure that all PII about respondents remains confidential. When reporting the results, the study team will present data only in aggregate form, so that individuals and provider sites are not identified. The study team will also take the following steps to protect confidentiality:

All data collection staff at AIR and any data collection subcontractors will complete required background clearances (i.e., e-QIP) and will sign agreements that emphasize the importance of confidentiality and specify employees’ obligations to maintain it.
All members of the study team with access to the data will be trained and certified on the importance of confidentiality and data security. Staff will receive training regarding the meaning of confidentiality, particularly as it relates to handling requests for information and providing assurance to respondents about the protection of their responses. Measures to maintain confidentiality will include built-in safeguards concerning status monitoring and receipt control systems.
AIR will establish a data governance and security plan for all information collected as part of the study. The data governance/security plan will specify procedures for managing these data, including: external requirements related to security (e.g., applicable regulations); roles and responsibilities of study team members, including processes for onboarding new staff, monitoring and granting access to data, and managing subcontractor compliance; processes for information security, including accessing, storing, and transferring data; and processes for data quality control and data disposition. AIR’s Information Security Office will review the appropriateness of all elements of the data governance/security plan.
Data collected from district records and school staff will be stored, processed, and analyzed in the contractor’s secure data enclave. All PII will be kept in separate forms and files which will be stored and processed in a separate, restricted secure data enclave. Both data enclaves are housed in Microsoft’s FedRAMP-certified Azure cloud and include security measures to limit data access to designated research staff, monitor data use, transfer files securely, and encrypt data at rest and in transit.
PII will be linked to other study data using study-specific identification numbers. Access to PII, or to a crosswalk file linking study-specific identification numbers to PII and contact information, will be limited to a small number of designated research staff who have a need to know this information. All research staff with access to these data will go through required background clearances (i.e., e-QIP) and will receive training about confidentiality.
All identifiers will be destroyed as soon as they are no longer required. Access to electronic files will be protected by secure usernames and passwords that will be available only to approved users. All data collected in the field will be saved in fully encrypted laptops until the data can be moved to a cloud-based server system that meets ED’s security requirements.
Access to printed documents will be strictly limited. Documents will be stored in locked files and cabinets. Discarded materials will be shredded.
To ensure that study participants are properly protected, AIR’s Institutional Review Board will review the study’s design protocols, informed consent process, data governance/security plan, and all data collection instruments and procedures.

In addition, all study staff who have access to confidential data must obtain security clearance from ED, which requires completing personnel security forms, providing fingerprints, and undergoing a background check.

All voluntary requests for information will be accompanied by statements indicating that:

Information collected for this study comes under the confidentiality and data protection requirements of ED’s IES, as required by the Education Science Reform Act of 2002, Title 1, Part E, Section 183.
The information will be used only for the purposes of research approved by ED.
The study team will hold in strict confidence all collected information and only disclose it for routine use purposes (per 5 U.S.C. 552a(e)3).

A system of records notice is currently being prepared for this study. ED expects to publish the notice by Fall 2024.

The study team will share PII with IES so that IES and its designated contractors may link to administrative data about students’ later outcomes. The sharing of information with IES and other sources for these purposes are described to participants in the informed consent form students complete to participate in the study (Appendix A in the original version of the information collection request).

A.11. Justification of Sensitive Questions

The purpose of the study is to evaluate two new transition support strategies for students with IEPs who are nearing the end of high school. The data collection will include information about what is recorded in students’ IEPs and their families’ involvement in the IEP process. This information is needed to measure key intermediate outcomes in the theory of action presented in Section A.1.b. For example, the study team will use this information to create measures of the alignment of students’ transition services to their postschool goals and the extent to which students and their families engage in IEP meetings.

A.12. Estimates of Respondent Burden

Exhibit A.6 summarizes reporting burden on respondents for data collections included in the current request over the next three years. The estimated hour burden for these study data collections is 5,880 hours over three years, or an average of 1,960 hours per year. The estimated total burden cost is $66,08.83, or $22,019.61 per year. Altogether, the burden for the study’s data collection is an average of 3,217 hours per year, adding 1,960 annual burden hours to the 1,257 annual hours in the original request.

Exhibit A.6. Estimated Respondent Time Burden and Costs for the Current Information Collection Request

		Number of Respondents Per Collection	Number of Collections	Estimated Total Number of Responses	Average Time per Response (Hours)	Total Time Burden (Hours)	Estimated Average Hourly Wage^a	Total Cost Burden
Students' IEPs ^b		16 district data staff	2	32	6	192	$40.12	$7,702.35
Student surveys		3,000 students	3	7,200^e	.55	3,960	$0	$0
School staff surveys^c (completed for each student)		93 school staff	2	4,800^e	.33	1,600	$32.06	$51,296.00
District cost interviews, and cost and staffing records^d		16 district administrators	2	32	4	128	$55.16	$7,060.48
	Total Over Three Years			12,064		5,880		$66,058.83
	Average Over Three Years			4,021		1,960		$22,019.61
	Original Request (Average Over Three Years)			2,069		1,257
	Total for Study			6,090		3,217

^a Wages are adjusted for inflation to 2023 dollar amounts.

^b Wage estimates are based the median annual salary of $84,120 for a school district database administrator in 2022 based on the Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics data maintained by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (https://www.bls.gov/oes).

^c Wage estimates are based the median annual salary of $63,560 for a secondary special education teacher in 2022 based on the Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics data maintained by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (https://www.bls.gov/oes).

^b Wage estimates are based the median annual salary of $106,270 for a school district administrator in 2022 based on the Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics data maintained by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (https://www.bls.gov/oes).

^e For the purposes of estimating burden in this table, the study team assumed that they will receive IEPs for all students participating in the study and will complete all district cost interviews. Additionally, the study team assumed that student and school staff surveys will be completed for 80 percent of students.

A.13. Estimates of Other Total Annual Cost Burden to Respondents and Record Keepers

The information collection activities covered by the current and future clearance requests do not require respondents to incur capital and start-up costs, new maintenance costs, or any costs of purchased services.

A.14. Estimates of Annualized Costs to the Federal Government

The total cost for the study is $39,295,044 over eleven years, or an annual cost to the federal government of $3,572,186.

A.15. Explanation for Program Changes or Adjustments to Burden

This request is a revision to the original information collection request and adds 1,960 annual burden hours for data collection to measure outcomes and assessment implementation and cost effectiveness of each strategy to the originally requested 1,257 annual hours. The estimated burden increased after the 60-day comment period to reflect feedback from school staff who tested the school staff survey and reported they would need time to gather information on some survey questions from colleagues before responding to those questions.

A.16. Plans for tabulation and publication of results

A.16.a. Analysis Plan

The study team will use the analytic approaches summarized below to conduct the evaluation and answer the research questions listed previously in Exhibit A.2 (see Part B for additional details).

Analyses to Assess Effectiveness. The study team will estimate the effectiveness of Strategy 1 and Strategy 2, relative to the regular transition supports that students receive (in the BAU control group), and compare the effectiveness of the two strategies. These analyses will produce estimates of the impact of the strategies on post-school outcomes including postsecondary enrollment, employment, and earnings, as well as on the intermediate outcomes listed in the theory of action (Exhibit A.1). The analyses will measure overall effectiveness using regression models to compare these outcomes between students randomly assigned to the Strategy 1, Strategy 2, and BAU groups. The models will adjust for student baseline covariates, drawing on information from district/school records for students, to improve precision and guard against imbalances across groups that arise due to chance or attrition from the study. The study team will also use the regression models to learn about the effectiveness of the strategies for certain types of students such as those demonstrating lower/higher self-determination skills.

Analyses to Assess Implementation. The study team will describe the students participating in the study using summary statistics. Means and percentages will be calculated for measures of student characteristics, achievement, and school participation and progress, as recorded in district/school data. The study team will put the results in context by comparing them to summary statistics calculated for the full set of eligible students in the study’s districts who are included in outreach efforts. In addition, the study team will tabulate responses to interviews with nonparticipating families to describe common reasons why families decline to be part of the study.

To understand the implementation of the study’s strategies and how those strategies compare to the BAU services the study team will also describe and compare the transition services received by treatment and BAU students. The study team will use information from the district contextual information forms and district/school records for students.

One set of implementation analyses will measure the service contrast between the Strategy 1, Strategy 2, and BAU groups. These analyses will use using regression models to compare the rates at which students in each group receive services related to self-determination instruction, individualized transition planning, and coaching/mentoring to facilitate participation in transition activities.
Another set of analyses will describe implementation fidelity and challenges. The analysis will describe how fidelity varies across students, instructors, and schools with differing characteristics, as well as by district. The study team will also use instructor logs and provider team implementation data to measure the prevalence of challenges and solutions to delivering the strategies, as well as the degree of uptake of key supports such as individualized mentoring.

Analyses to Assess Costs and Cost Effectiveness. The study team will use a resource cost model (RCM) to measure and analyze costs. The RCM captures the costs for the “ingredients” of Strategies 1 and 2—that is, specific implementation and delivery activities or resources. The RCM will allow the study team to calculate the per-student costs of Strategy 1 and Strategy 2 and compare costs across schools and districts with differing characteristics. The study team will also link costs with impact analysis results to produce cost-effectiveness estimates, measured as the cost per unit of improvement in each student outcome.

A.16.b. Publication Plan

The study team will conduct two rounds of analysis and reporting for IES using the data detailed in this clearance request and the methods described in the previous subsection. The study team will (a) conduct an interim analysis using data that cover the strategy implementation period, and (b) conduct a final analysis using data that cover an additional two years after strategy implementation ends. In each round, the study team will produce a report that is accessible to policymakers, along with a set of detailed technical appendices.

Interim report. The interim report will present impact analysis findings for the intermediate outcomes in the study’s theory of action (Exhibit A.1). It will also present findings from the implementation analysis, along with information to help educators beyond the study districts and schools understand what it takes to implement all key features of the strategies. This report is expected to be released in early 2027.
Final report. The final report will present impact analysis findings for post-school outcomes, and findings from the analyses of costs and cost-effectiveness. This report is expected to be released in early 2030.

Both reports will follow guidance provided in the NCES Statistical Standards (NCES, 2003) and the IES Style Guide (ED, IES, 2005). In addition, each report will be accompanied by a one-page highlights document that succinctly summarizes key findings for the public.

A.17. Approval to Not Display OMB Expiration Date

No exemption is requested. All data collection instruments will include the OMB expiration date.

A.18. Explanation of Exceptions to the Paperwork Reduction Act

No exceptions are needed for this data collection.

References

Berry, S. H., Pevar, J., & Zander-Cotugno, M. (2008). The use of incentives in surveys supported by federal grants. RAND Corporation.

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1 In 43 states and territories, more than 90 percent of YWD transition plans met federal compliance requirements for IDEA Indicator 13 reporting (U.S. Department of Education, 2018).

2 This request covers data to be collected through 2026. The remaining student outcome data from 2027 and 2028 is expected to be covered by a future extension request.

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