Evaluation of the IDEA Technical Assistance and 

Dissemination Program: Phase II

Statement for Paperwork Reduction Act Submission

PART B: Collection of Information 

Employing Statistical Methods

Contract ED-04-CO-0059/0032

June 24, 2014

Prepared for

Institute of Education Sciences

U.S. Department of Education

Prepared by

Westat
Part B: Collection of Information Employing Statistical Methods ii

Contents 

Page

Part B: Collection of Information Employing Statistical Methods................................... 1

Overview........................................................................................................................... 1

B.1 Respondent Universe and Sampling Methods ...................................................... 3

B.2 Information Collection Procedures ........................................................................ 9

B.3 Methods to Maximize Response Rates................................................................11

B.4 Test of Procedures...............................................................................................12

B.5 Individuals Consulted on Statistical Aspects of Design ........................................12
Part B: Collection of Information Employing Statistical Methods 1

Part B: Collection of Information Employing Statistical 

Methods

Overview

Part D of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) specifies that the TA&D Program 

will provide technical assistance, support model demonstration projects, disseminate useful 

information, and implement activities that are supported by scientifically based research (IDEA 

2004, P.L. 108-446 Part D Section 663, 118 Stat. 2781). The federal government has been 

funding projects that provide technical assistance related to the education of individuals with 

disabilities for four decades, and the TA&D Program assumed its current structure with the 1997 

reauthorization of IDEA. The TA&D Program awards grants in multiple subprogram areas, with 

grants ranging in size from approximately $65,000 per year to approximately $2.8 million per 

year. Program grantees are located throughout the U.S. and recipients include institutions of 

higher education, for-profit organizations and private nonprofit institutes and organizations.

Under contract with the National Center for Education Evaluation (NCEE) in the Institute of 

Education Sciences (IES) at the U. S. Department of Education (ED), Westat completed an 

evaluation of 27 national centers that were funded under the TA&D Program, referred to in this 

application as Phase I of the National Evaluation. Under Phase I, data were obtained from 

TA&D center Project Directors; State Special Education Directors; and state-level staff who 

oversaw or were involved with providing technical assistance in numerous areas. Phase I of the 

evaluation provided detailed information about project activities, need for TA, and satisfaction 

with TA received in these specified areas (Daley, Fiore, Bollmer, Nimkoff & Lysy, 2013). 

While robust and detailed information was obtained about national technical assistance and 

dissemination activities, Phase I of the Evaluation provided only minimal information about the 

State Deaf-Blind Projects. Children who are deafblind represent the quintessence of the 

populations that gave rise to special education: they are an extremely low incidence population, 

challenged as learners, and difficult to instruct under traditional conditions. In recognition of the 

unique needs of this population, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act requires that the 

Secretary reserve a portion of IDEA Part D funds each year to address the needs of children 

with deafblindness (see section 682(d)(1)(A) of IDEA, 20 U.S.C. 1482(d)). The combined 52 

projects make up approximately one-fifth of the annual expenditure for the TA&D Program. In 

collaboration with the National Center on Deaf-Blindness (NCDB), these projects play a central 

role in providing TA to families, professionals and paraprofessionals who serve children with 

deafblindness. And, while funded since the 1960s under various authorities, a formal evaluation 

of the State Deaf-Blind Projects has not, to our knowledge, ever been conducted.

In October 2013, a new set of 52 State Deaf-Blind Projects were awarded. These projects are 

each five years and range in size from $65,000 per year to $575,000 per year. As per the 

priority identified for these projects, they provide direct, targeted, and intensive TA to staff in 

LEAs, schools, EIS providers, and classrooms, where children who are deaf-blind are served. 

While the projects all share similar features, there is also variability in the structure, specific 

activities, and population served, as well as in other areas. Phase II of the Evaluation will 

include two questionnaires that are designed to describe this variability as well as better 

understand the population of providers who work with students with deafblindness in school and 

related settings. A State Deaf-Blind Project grantee questionnaire will yield detailed descriptive 

information about projects, including the topic areas on which they focus, the technical 
Part B: Collection of Information Employing Statistical Methods 2

assistance services provided by the projects and to whom they provide these services, and the 

collaborative relationships in which the projects engage. A questionnaire administered to service 

providers who are known to have worked with children with deafblindness will offer information 

about the needs that these individuals have for technical assistance to support children with 

deafblindness and their families. A short set of questions administered to service providers who 

have received targeted technical assistance from the projects will allow an assessment of 

satisfaction with individualized, direct, and intensive TA services provided by the projects. The 

evaluation questions appear below.

1) What technical assistance and dissemination activities do State Deaf-Blind Projects 

provide and how does this vary across the states?

a. What types of technical assistance and dissemination activities do projects provide?

b. To what extent do projects focus on the specific initiatives promoted by NCDB?1

c. To whom do projects provide TA? 

d. How do projects determine which children are eligible for and who will receive TA

services?

2) How do State Deaf-Blind Projects collaborate across the program, within their 

individual states, and with other TA providers?

a. Within the network of projects, with whom do projects collaborate and in what ways?

b. Outside the network of State Deaf-Blind Projects, with which other TA providers do 

projects collaborate and in what ways?

3) What are the needs for TA among service providers of children who are deafblind and 

how do needs vary? 

a. What are the needs for TA among service providers? 

b. How does need for TA vary by individual characteristics of service providers? 

c. How does need for TA vary by characteristics of service providers’ settings?

4) How satisfied are service providers with services provided by the State Deaf-Blind 

Projects?

a. How does service provider satisfaction with TA vary across projects?

b. How does service provider satisfaction vary based on characteristics of the project? 

c. How does satisfaction with TA vary by characteristics of service providers? 

d. How does satisfaction with TA vary by characteristics of service providers’ settings?

Data to address the research questions above will come primarily through the two 

questionnaires, and we will use project proposals as an extant data source to provide some 

descriptive information about the projects.

 

1

The relevant NCDB initiatives are: Early identification and referral, Intervener services, Transition, Family 

engagement, Literacy, and Technology solutions.
Part B: Collection of Information Employing Statistical Methods 3

B.1 Respondent Universe and Sampling Methods

We will collect data to address the evaluation questions from three groups of respondents: (1) 

project directors of the TA&D State Deaf-Blind Projects; (2) service providers who worked with 

individuals with deafblindness or their families at least on a weekly basis during 2014-15; and 

(3) a subset of providers who received targeted technical assistance from the projects during 

2013-14 or 2014-15.

2 Exhibit B-1 illustrates the relationship between the Provider and TA 

Recipient samples.

Exhibit B-1. Relationship of the Provider and TA Recipient Samples

Project Directors of the TA&D State Deaf-Blind Project Grants

The Project Director sample will provide data to address Evaluation Questions 1 and 2. We

have already identified the project directors of the 52 TA&D State Deaf-Blind Project grants that 

were funded in October 2013, and each director will be included in this sample. Project directors 

will be encouraged to direct the survey or parts of the survey to other individuals working on the 

project, if they are the appropriate respondent for a given question or section. The states and 

project names appear in Exhibit B-2. 

 

2

There is a fourth group of individuals who are included in the burden estimate—special education directors—

because we contact these individuals to create the sample of service providers who worked closely with individuals 

with deafblindness. This group does not provide data that are used to address the evaluation questions.

Providers of services to children 

and youth with deafblindness

Provider Sample

Providers identified by district special 

education directors and projects

TA Recipient Sample

Providers identified by DeafBlind Projects as receiving 

child-specific TA from the 

project or who self-identify as 

receiving targeted TA in 2013-

14 or 2014-15.-14 or 2014-15.
Part B: Collection of Information Employing Statistical Methods 4

Exhibit B-2. State Deaf-Blind Project Grants

State Project Name

Alaska Alaska Deaf-Blind Project

Alabama Alabama Deaf-Blind Project

Arkansas Children and Youth with Sensory Impairments (CAYSI)

Arizona Arizona Deafblind Project

California California Deaf-Blind Services

Colorado Colorado Services for Children and Youth with Combined Vision and Hearing Loss Project

Connecticut New England Consortium for Deaf-Blind Technical Assistance and Training (NEC)

DC Connections Beyond Sight and Sound (CBSS)

Delaware Delaware Statewide Programs for the Deaf, Hard of Hearing, and Deaf-Blind 

Florida Florida and Virgin Islands Deaf-Blind Collaborative

Georgia Georgia Sensory Assistance Project (GSAP)

Hawaii Hawai‘i and Pacific Deaf-Blind Project

Iowa Iowa's Deafblind Services Project

Idaho Idaho Project for Children and Youth with Deaf-Blindness

Illinois Project Reach: Illinois Deaf-Blind Services

Indiana Indiana Deafblind Services Project

Kansas Kansas Deaf-Blind Project

Kentucky Kentucky Deaf-Blind Project

Louisiana Louisiana Deafblind Project for Children and Youth

Massachusetts New England Consortium for Deaf-Blind Technical Assistance and Training

Maryland Connections Beyond Sight and Sound (CBSS)

Maine New England Consortium for Deaf-Blind Technical Assistance and Training

Michigan Deaf-Blind Central: Michigan's Training and Resource Project

Minnesota Minnesota Deaf-Blind Technical Assistance Project 

Missouri Missouri Deafblind Technical Assistance Project

Mississippi Mississippi Hearing-Vision Project

Montana Montana Deaf-Blind Project

North Carolina North Carolina Deaf-Blind Project

North Dakota North Dakota Dual Sensory Project

Nebraska Nebraska Project for Children who are Deaf-Blind

New Hampshire New England Consortium for Deaf-Blind Technical Assistance and Training

New Jersey New Jersey Constortium on Deaf Blindness (NJCDB)

New Mexico Project for New Mexico Children and Youth who are Deaf-Blind

Nevada Nevada Dual Sensory Impairment Project

New York New York Deaf-Blind Collaborative

Ohio Ohio Center for Deafblind Education

Oklahoma Oklahoma Deaf-Blind Technical Assistance Project (OKDBTAP)

Oregon Oregon Deaf-Blind Project

Pennsylvania The Pennsylvania Deaf-Blind Project

Puerto Rico Deafblind Program in Puerto Rico

Rhode Island Rhode Island Services to Children and Youth with Dual Sensory Impairments

South Carolina South Carolina Interagency Deaf-Blind Project (SCIDB)

South Dakota South Dakota Deaf-Blind Project

Tennessee Tennessee Deaf-Blind Project (TNDB)

Texas Texas Deaf-Blind Project

Utah Utah Deaf-Blind Project

Virginia Virginia Project for Children and Young Adults with Deafblindness (VA Deaf-Blind Project)

Vermont Vermont Sensory Access Project (Deaf-Blind Project)

Washington Washington State Services for Children with Deaf-Blindness

Wisconsin Wisconsin Deaf-Blind Technical Assistance Project (WDBTAP)

West Virginia WV SenseAbilities

Wyoming Wyoming Deaf-Blind Project
Part B: Collection of Information Employing Statistical Methods 5

Providers and TA Recipients

Providers will contribute information about needs for TA that are experienced by those who work 

directly with students with deafblindness, and information from this sample will allow us to 

address Evaluation Question 3. The Provider sample is composed of individuals who are 

identified by school or district administrative staff as working closely with students with 

deafblindness and their families on at least a weekly basis during the year of the project (2014-

15). By targeting the individuals who are responsible for providing direct services to students 

with deafblindness, we will obtain information from the most knowledgeable individuals at the 

local level. This process mirrors our procedure successfully used in Phase I of the evaluation. 

Providers will receive questions about their background and experiences with deafblindness, 

about their needs for TA, and about their usual sources for receiving information about 

deafblindness. 

As noted above, a subset of providers will be identified as receiving child-specific assistance 

from their State Deaf-Blind Project during the 2013-14 or 2014-15 school years or will selfidentify as having received targeted assistance from their state project during this same time 

period. Our definition of targeted TA includes two primary forms of assistance: 1) child-specific

assistance, which is technical assistance that was focused on a particular child or children, and 

is by definition individualized. In child-specific TA, a child or multiple children are identified as 

the focus of services. Targeted TA also includes staff-specific assistance, which is other direct

intensive technical assistance designed to train service providers working with deaf blind 

children in order to assure that they can provide high quality services. Staff-specific assistance 

will be intensive, but not linked to a specific child or children, and may be designed to increase 

skills around a particular topic or educational process. Our definition of targeted assistance

involves either onsite visits or the use of distance technology, which is becoming increasingly 

used for state deaf-blind projects. The sample of TA Recipients will allow us to address 

Evaluation Question 4, which focuses on the performance of the Deaf-Blind Projects in 

providing targeted technical assistance. 

The Provider and TA Recipient samples will comprise diverse respondents who represent many

professions. Because of the complexity of the condition of deafblindness, children are typically 

served by a team of professionals and related services providers to address their needs. There 

is no existing list of individuals who work with students with deafblindness in the U.S. To access 

the individuals who work with this population, we will identify participants using a stratified twostage design. 

Stage 1

1. From each State Deaf-Blind Project, we will request a list that contains the school and 

district at which each student aged 6-21 with deafblindness was reported to attend, 

based on the Child Count project data submitted to the National Center on DeafBlindness (NCDB) in 2014. Identifying information about the child will not be requested 

nor provided to Westat. For any state unable to provide this information, we will ask 

projects to identify any schools or districts which are known to have children and youth 

with deafblindness enrolled, even if no TA was provided.

2. We will also request a list of all schools where child-specific assistance was provided to 

a child or youth age 6-21 since the start of the state project (e.g., the 2013-14 and 2014-

15 school years), along with contact information (name and email address) for all service 

providers who received child-specific assistance. Child and family names will not be 

obtained. Projects will be asked only to provide information about recipients of childspecific TA because all projects may not maintain complete lists of individuals served 
Part B: Collection of Information Employing Statistical Methods 6

through other forms of TA, and we would obtain an incomplete (and therefore biased) 

sample if we did not obtain these lists from all states.

3. Using both available sources, a master list of schools across the states will be compiled. 

Stratification will be made on the basis of number of students with deafblindness in 

attendance in the school and possibly by urban/rural designation if feasible. Schools at 

which the project worked will be sampled with certainty. A simple random sample of 

schools will be selected from each stratum with a sample size allocated proportionally to 

the number of students with deafblindness, so that schools with greater number of 

students identified as deafblind will be selected with a higher probability. If urban/rural 

stratification is feasible, it will be necessary to oversample the rural strata to have an 

adequate sample size for providers serving rural schools; see additional sampling detail 

below.

Stage 2

4. We will contact the district special education director of each sampled school. 

a. In schools where children and youth with deafblindness are known to have 

attended, special education directors will be asked to provide contact information 

(name and email) for all providers in the school who with children and youth with 

deafblindness at least on a weekly basis.

b. In schools where providers are known to have received TA from the project, we 

will provide this list of names and ask special education directors to identify all 

other individuals who work with students with deafblindness on a weekly basis in 

their school, noting that the individuals identified will already be completing the 

survey. 

5. All providers identified by schools will receive the Provider Questionnaire.

6. All providers identified as having received child-specific assistance by the State DeafBlind Project, or who self-identify as receiving targeted assistance (including both childspecific and staff-specific assistance), will receive the questions that constitute the TA 

Recipient Supplement in addition to completing the Provider Questionnaire. For such 

respondents, the TA Recipient Supplement appears as a short set of questions that 

follow those on background and needs for TA, and is seamlessly integrated as one 

instrument. 

Estimates

Using information from the 2012 NCDB Child Count (Census) data and estimates provided by 

project directors, we estimate that there may be roughly 4,920 schools that students age 6-21 

with deafblindness attend. 

For the purpose of this study we define Providers as all individuals identified by a district

administrator or other authorized individual as someone who works with deafblind students and 

their families on at least a weekly basis at each of those schools. We estimate that special 

education directors are likely to identify an average of four providers per school who meet the 

criteria of “working with students with deafblindness on at least a weekly basis.” Using this 

estimate, we calculate the population of providers to be 19,680.

For the purpose of this study, we define TA Recipients as a subset of providers who have 

received targeted TA from a deaf-blind project, whereas non-TA providers are individuals who 
Part B: Collection of Information Employing Statistical Methods 7

have not received TA. Within this group, we estimate that there are, across all states, 

approximately 1,500 providers who will either be identified as having received child-specific TA

by a project or will self-identify as having received targeted TA from their state deaf-blind project 

though they were not reported to do so by the project. Schools at which these providers are 

located are selected with certainty, and individuals identified by state projects as having 

received child-specific TA automatically are included in the TA Recipient sample. We assume 

some clustering of these recipients of TA and estimate that a project will identify 3 providers per 

school on average as TA recipients, resulting in a total of 500 schools that are selected with 

certainty. In schools where TA has been provided and these individuals are located, we 

estimate that special education directors will identify only one additional provider and no 

additional TA recipients beyond the 3 already identified on average. 

Using these assumptions, we need 1,250 providers who have not received TA in order to meet 

the precision goal of a standard error of 2 percent for the Provider sample, which means that we 

will need to select 750 providers from schools at which no TA has been provided – more 

discussion follows how this sample size is derived. The number of such schools required to 

obtain these providers is 188 (=750/4). We expect that a small number of schools that served 

students with deafblindness in 2013-14 will no longer do so in 2014-15, and that some sampled 

schools will decline to participate. To account for these factors, we increase the sample size of 

188 to 220. Therefore the total school sample size becomes 720, including 500 schools 

sampled with certainty. Because it is also feasible that fewer than four providers will be 

identified on average, and that the school participation rate is lower than expected, we will 

select 180 additional schools (25% more) as a back-up sample, resulting in a total of 900 

schools needed in the first-stage sampling.

To calculate an appropriate sample size, we need to know two parameters: the precision goal 

and an anticipated design effect. The design effect is a measure of loss in sampling efficiency 

by using a more complex sample design than the most simplistic sample design that is the 

simple random sampling (SRS) method, which selects providers with an equal probability 

directly from the list of providers without going through schools. In our case, this is not feasible 

because the SRS method would require the list (sampling frame) of all providers who work with 

deafblind students for all 4,920 schools, and it is not feasible to create such a list within the 

constraints of this evaluation. The sample design (a stratified two-stage design) we propose is

necessarily more complex than the SRS design, and we expect some loss in sampling 

efficiency compared with the SRS method. This loss is measured by the inflation of the 

variance, that is, the ratio of the variance under the complex design to the variance under the 

SRS design for the same sample size. This measure, called the design effect, is usually greater 

than one for a complex design and usually consists of two factors: the weighting factor, which is 

the effect due to unequal weights, and the clustering effect, which is the effect of using clusters 

(schools) instead of direct sampling of providers. We expect that the variance will be inflated by 

30 percent due to clustering and 20 percent due to unequal weights, and the combined design 

effect is then 1.6 (= 1.3 * 1.2).

It is customary to set the precision goal to be the maximum standard error for estimating a 

population proportion of 50 percent from a nationally representative sample. If this precision 

goal is set at a standard error of 2 percentage points, the required sample size for the sample 

design we plan to use to meet the precision requirement is 1,000 with the assumed design 

effect of 1.6. This is our precision goal for the Provider sample. Assuming an 80% response rate

of providers, we need to select and contact about 1,250 providers whom we do not believe to 

have received TA. 
Part B: Collection of Information Employing Statistical Methods 8

We anticipate that some providers serve more than one school. The survey will instruct 

respondents to complete the survey only once, and through our survey management system, 

we will be able to identify those individuals who were listed more than once (even if they are 

non-responders). We view the likelihood of this occurrence as low, and identified duplicate 

names will be treated as ineligible in weighting.

The precision goal can be translated into the margin of error for the 95 percent confidence 

interval to be 4 percentage points. These calculations are summarized in the Exhibit B-3. 

Exhibit B-3. Precision goal and the required sample size for the Provider Sample

Precision in S.E. (%) Margin of Error for 

95% CI (%)

Respondent Sample 

Size

Initial Sample Size for 

Data Collection1

2 4 1,000 1,250

1 Rounded at hundreds.

Being a census for the TA Recipients, the precision is expected to be very good for this group, 

even when accounting for some nonresponses. The expected precision for the entire sample of 

Providers and TA Recipients will be quite good and estimated to be a standard error of 1.7 

percent for an estimate of 50 percent population proportion assuming a design effect of 2.6. We 

expect that the design effect will increase because the weights for the TA group and non-TA 

group will be very different. We assumed that the clustering effect is the same (i.e., 1.3) but the 

weighting factor is 2 in the design effect.

When a population proportion less than or greater than 50 percent is estimated, the precision is 

expected to be better than the target precision with the same sample size because precision is 

worst for a 50 percent population proportion.

Once we obtain the full list of schools, we will examine and discuss the potential capability for 

stratification based on either or both of the following dimensions:

Number of students with deafblindness who enrolled: While students are far more dispersed 

across schools than in any time in the past, there remain special schools for the deaf, blind and 

deafblind, and there are also schools that serve clusters of students from across a wide 

geographical area (e.g., a county). Stratification by number of students with deafblindness in 

attendance would ensure that schools that serve multiple students with deafblindness are 

included in the sample with a higher chance and that there is adequate power to address 

Evaluation Question 3c and 4d. 

Urban/Rural-remote: Rural and remote schools are often difficult to serve through targeted TA

due to the challenge of physically reaching geographically remote populations. Numerous 

grantees noted this challenge in their proposals, and included estimates of distance and travel 

time to highlight this point. Oversampling these schools would ensure that an adequate number 

of rural/remote schools are included in the sample to address the important issues faced by 

these providers, and provide adequate power to address Evaluation Question 3c and 4d.
Part B: Collection of Information Employing Statistical Methods 9

B.2 Information Collection Procedures

Collection of Extant Data

OSEP has already provided each of the successful grantee applications from the recently 

funded projects, and has provided information on the funding level for each project. In addition 

to our review of these that we completed to inform our questionnaire development, we will 

extract the following information to provide a descriptive context to the project:

 Project funding amount from ED

 Administrative location of the project

 Number of full time staff associated with the project

 Number of part time staff associated with the project

 Total FTEs supported through the grant 

 Total FTEs supported through external sources

 Geocoded project location to allow calculation of distance between the provider setting 

and the project location

In conjunction with survey data, these data will be used as contextual background and as part of 

each state project profile.

Collection of State Deaf-Blind Project Data

The TA&D State Deaf-Blind Project Questionnaire will be a web-based tool to collect detailed 

descriptive information of projects concerning: (1) structural aspects of the Projects not available 

through extant sources, (2) the type of technical assistance activities conducted, (3) who is 

served, and (4) with whom projects collaborate. The questionnaire was modeled after a tool 

used successfully during Phase I of the Evaluation to obtain information about the National 

TA&D Centers and was informed through review of the grantee proposals for the 2013-2017 

cycle of funding, as well as through close examination of existing survey tools used by grantees. 

One week prior to requesting the lists of schools that children attended and of TA recipients, a 

personalized cover letter will be mailed to the Project Director to provide an overview of the 

project and timeline for data collection (see Appendix D). We will then follow up by email with 

electronic templates for the project directors to use to provide two lists. One list will identify the 

school and district for each student included in the state deafblind census for children aged 6-

21. The second list will consist of names and contact information for service providers to whom 

projects have provided child-specific technical assistance during 2013-14, either onsite or using 

distance technology. Both lists will be used to identify all schools at which students with 

deafblindness may be located, and neither list will include student names or other student 

identifiers.

The Deaf-Blind Project Questionnaire itself will not be administered to directors until October 

2014, a full year from the start of their project. Follow-up with directors will be conducted by 

email and phone to clarify any items, as needed. Once the questionnaire and follow-up have

been completed, the data collection will be closed out.

To help ensure a high response rate among State Deaf-Blind Project directors, we will provide 

information to the TA&D Program Project Officers and to the directors themselves at OSEP’s 

annual meeting in July 2014, and will also use the meeting to address any challenges the 
Part B: Collection of Information Employing Statistical Methods 10

Projects have had in compiling their lists of schools and TA recipients. We do not anticipate 

difficulty in achieving 100% participation among TA&D Deaf-Blind Project grantees.

Collection of Provider Data

The Provider Questionnaire will be completed by individuals who are identified by school or 

district administrative staff as having worked closely with students with deafblindness on at least 

a weekly basis during the 2014-15 school year. By targeting those individuals who have had the 

most responsibility for providing services to students with deafblindness, we will obtain 

information from the most knowledgeable individuals at the local level. This process mirrors our 

procedure successfully used in Phase I of the evaluation. Providers will receive questions about 

their background and experiences with deafblindness, about their needs for TA, and about their 

usual sources for receiving information about deafblindness. 

The Provider Questionnaire was developed through review of the grantee proposals, review of 

existing “needs assessment” tools by grantees, satisfaction surveys used by grantees, and TA

request forms used by grantees. It was revised through testing with providers who had a range 

of professional experiences working with students with deafblindness, and reviewed by former 

project directors and NCDB staff.

Once the sample of schools is selected, contact information for the district special education 

director for each school will be identified using publicly available information on school and 

district websites. Data collection procedures will then be as follows:

Step 1: Mail an advance letter from Westat to inform special education directors of the 

forthcoming survey, to share with them the purpose of the study and its importance, and 

to ask for their cooperation (See Appendix D for Advance letter).

Step 2: After one week, email each special education director with the web address for 

logging in to the Respondent Assignment page, along with login directions. (See 

Appendix B for Email and Respondent Assignment page).

Step 3: Begin follow-up contact by telephone and email to confirm receipt of the survey 

information packet by the correct person and to address technical difficulties with the 

web-based survey or answer questions about the Respondent Assignment page. 

Step 4: As providers are assigned surveys, initiate email contact on an ongoing basis to 

provide clarification about questions as needed, prioritizing those respondents who have 

not begun or have completed only a limited portion of the survey. All follow-up within a 

given state will be conducted by the same individual to allow a cohesive process of data 

retrieval, and to immediately identify any cases where a secondary respondent may not 

have received correct information. 
Part B: Collection of Information Employing Statistical Methods 11

Collection of TA Recipient Data

The TA Recipient Supplement will be administered to all providers identified by each State 

Deaf-Blind Project as an individual who received child-specific technical assistance (whether 

onsite or through distance technology) during 2013-14 or 2014-15. This is a verified customer 

group. In addition, providers who respond affirmatively to screener questions asking about 

receipt of targeted TA from a state project on the Provider Questionnaire will be invited to 

complete the TA Recipient Supplement. This is a self-identified group of TA recipients. The TA

Recipient Supplement was developed using the same process as the Provider Questionnaire, 

and was tested with individuals who in the past have received child-specific assistance from 

projects. The same follow-up techniques will be used with the TA Recipient sample, namely, 

email and phone calls to encourage completion. 

B.3 Methods to Maximize Response Rates

Section B.2 describes the procedures that we will use to implement the State Deaf-Blind Project 

Director Questionnaire and the Provider Questionnaire and TA Recipient Supplement. These 

procedures were developed to encourage cooperation and completion of the activities within the 

data collection period. We anticipate that we will be able to obtain a 100% response rate with 

the Project Directors. Our goal is to achieve over an 80% response rate for the samples of 

Providers and TA Recipients. We are confident about achieving this goal for TA Recipients, 

given that they have received services and have a relationship with the State Projects, and 

therefore have a greater investment in completing the survey. Due to the high demands on time 

among providers in school settings, we have some concerns about obtaining a sufficient sample 

of Providers, especially if they were not TA Recipients, so we propose appropriate incentives to 

compensate these service providers for the time required to complete a survey. Exhibit B-4

highlights the specific strategies we will employ to maximize response rates for all samples and 

to deal with issues of non-response. 

Exhibit B-4. Strategies to Maximize Response Rates

Strategy Explanation

Design a high quality and 

user-friendly instrument

All surveys have been pre-tested to ensure that the questions are clear and as user-friendly as possible (in 

particular, many of the items are answered by checking off boxes rather than writing in responses), and the 

survey can be completed quickly. It has also been kept short by excluding requests for information that 

can be obtained from other data sources.

Advance notification of 

survey 

Gain support and cooperation of State Deaf-Blind Project directors and of special education directors by 

providing advance notice of the survey.

Provide clear instructions and 

user-friendly materials

Send introductory letter from Westat along with a personalized cover letter that explains the survey and 

what participation entails, provides assurance of confidentiality, and provides the web address for the online survey along with instructions for completing the on-line survey. 

Offer appropriate incentives

A small but meaningful incentive of a $20 gift certificate at Amazon, which is immediately accessible and 

redeemable, will serve as a mechanism to maximize the response rates in this sample of providers, 

particularly if respondents are completing the survey during their break or off-school hours.

Offer technical assistance for 

survey respondents

 Provide toll-free technical assistance telephone number

 Provide study website with instructions for web-based survey completion

Monitor progress regularly 

 Produce weekly data collection report of completed surveys

 Maintain regular contact between study team members to monitor response rates, identify nonrespondents, and resolve problems

 Use follow-up and reminder calls and e-mails to non-respondents 
Part B: Collection of Information Employing Statistical Methods 12

B.4 Test of Procedures

The State Deaf-Blind Project Questionnaire, Provider Questionnaire, and TA Recipient 

Supplement were tested internally, and information derived from the tests was used to refine 

them. The Deaf-Blind Project Questionnaire was also pre-tested with 9 individuals familiar with 

state Deaf-Blind Project. As part of the pre-testing, the respondents completed the 

questionnaire and then participated in telephone calls or in-person interviews with project staff in 

order to pre-test the interview items. The information obtained from the pre-test respondents 

was used to refine questionnaire items and to assess potential burden. The Provider 

Questionnaire and TA Recipient Supplement were tested with 9 service providers from different 

states. Formal cognitive testing procedures were conducted with respondents, who each 

participated in telephone calls with project staff member and survey specialists to go over their 

responses and comments. The information obtained from the pre-test respondents was used to 

refine survey items and to assess potential burden. It should be noted that pre-testing of the 

Provider Questionnaire and TA Recipient Supplement involved various iterations of the surveys 

to ensure confidence that the refined survey items were capturing key constructs.

B.5 Individuals Consulted on Statistical Aspects of Design

These data collection plans were developed by Westat. The research team is led by Tamara 

Daley, project director and Tom Fiore, Principal Investigator. Other members of the evaluation 

team who worked on the design include Hyunshik Lee and Jessica Edwards from Westat. The 

NCEE project officer, Meredith Bachman, also played a central role in data collection plans. 

Additional input was provided by Jonathan Jacobson, NCEE, and by OSEP staff, Larry Wexler, 

JoAnn McCann and David Egnor. The four TWG members, John Killoran, Mark Schalock, 

Robbie Blaha and Kathleen Scoggins reviewed multiple drafts of the instruments and provided 

comments. Contact information for these individuals is provided in Exhibit B-5.

Exhibit B-5. Individuals consulted on aspects of the design of the study

Name Organization Telephone

Dr. Tamara Daley, Project Director Westat 919-474-8038

Dr. Thomas Fiore, Principal Investigator Westat 919-474-0349

Dr. Hyunshik Lee Westat 301-610-5112

Dr. Jessica Edwards Westat 919-474-8439

Dr. Meredith Bachman Institute of Education Sciences, 

U.S. Department of Education

202-219-2014

Dr. Jonathan Jacobson Institute of Education Sciences, 

U.S. Department of Education

202-208-3876

Dr. Larry Wexler Office of Special Education Programs,

U.S. Department of Education

202-245-7571

JoAnn McCann Office of Special Education Programs,

U.S. Department of Education

202-245-7434

David Egnor Office of Special Education Programs,

U.S. Department of Education

202-245-7334

John Killoran National Center on Deaf-Blindness 503-838-8757

Mark Schalock National Center on Deaf-Blindness 503-838-8777

Robbie Blaha Retired Director of Texas’ Deaf-Blind Project 512-636-6753

Kathleen Scoggins Retired Director of Washington’s Deaf-Blind Project 509-951-7038