Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten 

Class of 2010-11 (ECLS-K:2011)

Spring Third-Grade National Data Collection, Fourth-Grade 

Recruitment, and Fifth-Grade Tracking

OMB Clearance Package

# 1850-0750 v.15

Supporting Statement

Part A

Prepared by

National Center for Education Statistics

U.S. Department of Education
i

Table of Contents

Section Page

A.1 Circumstances Making Collection of Information Necessary...................... A-1

A.1.1 Purpose of This Submission................................................................ A-1

A.1.2 Legislative Authorization...................................................................... A-1

A.1.3 Prior Related Studies............................................................................. A-2

A.1.4 ECLS-K:2011 Study Design for the Spring Third-Grade 

National Data Collection...................................................................... A-2

A.1.5 Pilot Tests of the Third-, Fourth-, and Fifth-Grade Direct Child 

Assessment, Child Questionnaire, and Online School 

Administrator Questionnaire............................................................... A-8

A.1.5.1 Pilot Tests of the Third-, Fourth-, and Fifth-Grade 

Direct Child Assessment and Child Questionnaire.......................... A-9

A.1.5.2 Pilot Test of the Online School Administrator 

Questionnaire......................................................................................... A-11

A.2 Purposes and Uses of the Data......................................................................... A-13

A.2.1 Research Issues Addressed in the ECLS-K:2011 ............................. A-13

A.2.1.1 Developments in Early Education Policy ......................... A-14

A.2.1.2 School Readiness................................................................... A-16

A.2.1.3 Executive Functioning ......................................................... A-17

A.2.1.4 Demographic Changes......................................................... A-18

A.2.1.5 Hearing Impairments in the Early Elementary School 

Years........................................................................................ A-20

A.3 Use of Improved Information Technology .................................................... A-19

A.4 Efforts to Identify Duplication......................................................................... A-21

A.5 Method Used to Minimize Burden on Small Businesses.............................. A-21

A.6 Frequency of Data Collection ........................................................................... A-22

A.7 Special Circumstances of Data Collection....................................................... A-22

A.8 Consultants Outside the Agency ...................................................................... A-22

A.9 Provision of Payments or Gifts to Respondents............................................ A-27

A.9.1 School Incentive .................................................................................... A-28

A.9.2 School Administrator............................................................................ A-28

A.9.3 Teachers.................................................................................................. A-29

A.9.4 School Coordinators............................................................................. A-31

A.10 Assurance of Confidentiality ............................................................................. A-31

A.11 Sensitive Questions............................................................................................. A-34
ii

Contents (continued)

Section Page

A.12 Estimated Response Burden ............................................................................. A-38

A.13 Estimates of Cost to Respondents................................................................... A-39

A.14 Annualized Cost to the Federal Government................................................. A-39

A.15 Reasons for Changes in Response Burden and Costs................................... A-42

A.16 Publication Plans and Time Schedule .............................................................. A-42

A.17 Approval for Not Displaying the Expiration Date for OMB Approval..... A-43

A.18 Exceptions to the Certification Statement ...................................................... A-43

Appendixes

A Child Questionnaire 

B Child Questions for Hearing Evaluations

C Parent Interview

D General Classroom Teacher Questionnaires 

E Special Education Teacher Questionnaires

F School Administrator Questionnaires

G Links Between Instrument Items, Covered Constructs, and Related 

Research Questions

H Respondent Materials

I Memorandum on Item and Construct Discussions with the Bureau of 

Justice Statistics (BJS)

Tables

A-1 Federal agency consultants for ECLS-K and ECLS-K:2011........................ A-24

A-2 Other organization consultants for ECLS-K.................................................. A-25

A-3 ECLS-K:2011 First TRP meeting attendee list (November 2008).............. A-25

A-4 ECLS-K:2011 Second TRP meeting attendee list (March 2011)................. A-25

A-5 ECLS-K:2011 CRP members lists, by panel................................................... A-26

A-6 Study costs per year of the contract for the third- and fourth-grade data 

collections............................................................................................................. A-39

A-7 Estimated respondent burden for the national spring third-grade data 

collection, previously cleared third-grade tracking and recruitment 

activities, recruitment for the spring fourth-grade data collection, and 

sample tracking for the spring fourth-grade and spring fifth-grade data 

collections............................................................................................................. A-40

A-8 Operational schedule for ECLS-K:2011 data collection activities............... A-43

Exhibits

A-1 Examples of important developments relevant to the ECLS-K:2011 ........ A-14

A-2 Confidentiality Pledge......................................................................................... A-33
A-1

A.1 Circumstances Making Collection of Information Necessary

A.1.1 Purpose of This Submission

The Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 2010-11 (ECLS-K:2011), sponsored by the 

National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) within the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) of the U.S. 

Department of Education (ED), is a survey that focuses on children’s early school experiences beginning with 

kindergarten and continuing through the fifth grade. It includes the collection of data from parents, teachers, 

school administrators, and nonparental care providers, as well as direct child assessments. Like its sister study, 

the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998-99 (ECLS-K),1the ECLS-K:2011 is 

exceptionally broad in its scope and coverage of child development, early learning, and school progress, 

drawing together information from multiple sources to provide rich data about the population of children 

who were kindergartners in the 2010-11 school year. Data collections to date have been conducted for NCES 

by Westat, with the Educational Testing Service (ETS) as the subcontractor developing the child assessments. 

Clearances for studying the ECLS-K:2011 cohort were granted for the fall 2009 field test data collection, fall 

2010 and spring 2011 kindergarten national data collections, fall 2011 and spring 2012 first-grade national

data collections, and fall 2012 and spring 2013 second-grade national data collection (OMB No. 1850-0750). 

Several generic clearance requests for testing various components of the study have also been approved 

(OMB 1850-0803). 

This submission requests OMB’s approval for the spring 2014 third-grade national data collection, sample 

recruitment for the fourth-grade national data collection, and tracking for the fifth-grade national data 

collection. This submission also includes carry-over burden from the last approved national data collection 

package (OMB# 1850-0750 v.12-13) for the activities that will not be completed by the time this package is 

expected to be approved.

A.1.2 Legislative Authorization

The ECLS-K:2011 is conducted by NCES in close consultation with other offices and organizations within 

and outside the U.S. Department of Education. The ECLS-K:2011 is authorized by law under the Education 

Sciences Reform Act of 2002 (20 U.S. Code Section 9543):

(A) “The Statistics Center shall collect, report, analyze, and disseminate statistical data related to 

education in the United States and in other nations, including -- (7) conducting longitudinal and 

special data collections necessary to report on the condition and progress of education;”

 

1 Throughout this package, reference is made to the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998-99. For ease of presentation, 

it will be referred to as the ECLS-K. The new study for which this submission requests approval is referred to as the ECLS-K:2011.
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A.1.3 Prior Related Studies

The ECLS-K:2011 is part of a longitudinal studies program. The two prior ECLS studies pertain to two 

cohorts—the kindergarten class of 1998-99 cohort and a birth cohort. Together these cohorts provide the 

range and breadth of data required to more fully describe and understand children’s education experiences, 

early learning, development, and health in the late 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s.

The birth cohort of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS-B) followed a national sample of children 

born in the year 2001, from birth through kindergarten entry. The ECLS-B focused on the characteristics of 

children and their families that influence children’s school readiness and first experiences with formal 

schooling, as well as children’s early health and in- and out-of-home experiences.

The ECLS-K followed a nationally representative cohort of children from kindergarten through eighth grade. 

The base-year data were collected in the fall and spring of the 1998-99 school year, when the sampled 

children were in kindergarten. A total of 21,260 kindergartners throughout the nation participated by having a 

child assessment and/or parent interview conducted during that school year. Five more waves of data were 

collected: in fall and spring of the 1999-2000 school year when most, but not all, of the children who 

participated in the base year were in first grade; in the spring of the 2001-02 school year when most, but not 

all, of the children who participated in the base year were in third grade; in the spring of the 2003-04 school 

year when most, but not all, of the children who participated in the base year were in fifth grade; and in the 

spring of the 2006-07 school year when most, but not all, of the children who participated in the base year 

were in eighth grade.2

A.1.4 ECLS-K:2011 Study Design for the Spring Third-Grade National Data 

Collection

The sample for the ECLS-K:2011 is a representative sample of children across the country who attended 

kindergarten in 2010-11. The sample was selected using a multistage probability design. In the first stage, 90 

primary sampling units (PSUs) that are counties or groups of counties were selected with probability 

proportional to size (PPS). In the second stage, public and private schools offering kindergarten or educating 

5-year-olds in an ungraded setting were selected, also with PPS. The third-stage sampling units were children 

in kindergarten or children of kindergarten age in ungraded schools or classrooms. Children were selected 

within each sampled school using equal probability systematic sampling, with a higher sampling rate for Asian 

and Pacific Islanders (APIs) so as to achieve a minimum required sample size for APIs. 

The base-year (i.e., kindergarten) data were collected in the fall and spring of the 2010-11 school year. The fall 

first-grade data collection was conducted in fall 2011 when most, but not all, of the sampled children were in 

 

2 At each follow-up stage, a small percentage of children had been retained in a grade at some point prior to the wave of interest and therefore 

were in a grade lower than the target grade of that follow-up stage. In addition, a small number of children were found to be advanced to a 

higher grade. These off-grade students were not excluded from the study.
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first grade. The spring first-grade data collection was conducted in spring 2012 when most, but not all, of the 

sampled children were in first grade. The fall second-grade data collection was conducted in fall 2012 when 

most, but not all, of the sampled children were in second grade, and the spring second-grade data collection 

was conducted in spring 2013 when most, but not all, of the sampled children were in second grade.3

Similar to the previous years’ spring data collections, the national spring third-grade data collection will 

include direct child assessments, height and weight measurements, parent interviews, and school 

administrator and teacher (both regular classroom and special education teacher) questionnaires. As in all 

prior rounds of data collection, computer assisted interviewing (CAI) will be the mode of data collection for 

the child assessment and the parent interviews. Also as done in the past, school administrator and teacher 

data will be collected via hard-copy self-administered questionnaires. New to the ECLS-K:2011 in the thirdgrade round, children will also complete an audio-CASI (computer assisted self-interview) version of a child 

questionnaire. As was done in the fall second-grade round, a subsample of children will also participate in a 

hearing evaluation.

Cognitive Assessments. As in the kindergarten, first-, and second-grade data collections for the ECLSK:2011, a direct cognitive assessment will be administered in the spring 2014 third-grade collection. The 

cognitive assessment will measure the domains of reading, mathematics, science, and executive functioning. It 

will be administered directly to the sampled children through a one-on-one assessment employing age- and 

grade-appropriate items. The structure of the ECLS-K:2011 third-grade reading, mathematics, and science 

assessments will be two-stage, the same as the ECLS-K:2011 previous round assessments.4 That is, for the 

cognitive assessments in reading, math, and science, all children first will be administered a routing test. 

Performance on the routing test will determine which one of three second-stage tests (low, middle, or high 

difficulty) will be appropriate for the child’s skill level; the child will then be administered the appropriate 

second-stage assessment form. The executive function measures (i.e., Numbers Reversed and Dimensional 

Change Card Sort tasks) are not two-stage assessments.

Though new items were developed for inclusion in the third-grade ECLS-K:2011 reading, mathematics, and 

science assessments, a majority of items in the assessments will be the same as those included in the assessments 

from the earlier rounds of the ECLS-K:2011 and from the ECLS-K kindergarten, first-grade, third-grade, and/or 

fifth-grade assessments. Items from earlier rounds of the ECLS-K:2011 are included to allow for the 

measurement of growth or gains in knowledge and skills as children age. Items from the ECLS-K are included in 

order to enable researchers to conduct cross-cohort analyses using the assessment data.

The spring third-grade cognitive assessment, like the spring second-grade cognitive assessment, will use a 

computerized version of the Dimensional Change Card Sort (DCCS) task, which measures children’s 

 

3 Since the study began, some children have been retained in a grade and some children have been advanced to a grade higher than the modal 

grade of the study’s children. While the study refers to the data collection rounds by the modal grade for most children in the cohort at the time 

of data collection, children are still included in the study even if they are in grades other than the modal grade due to retention or advancement. 

4 In kindergarten, the science assessment had just one stage. 
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executive functioning (specifically, cognitive flexibility). Although administered as a non-computerized (i.e., 

physical card) version in the kindergarten and first-grade rounds, the computerized version to be used in the 

spring third-grade round was successfully used in the fall and spring second-grade rounds. In the physical card 

version, children sorted cards into trays based on sorting rules provided to them by the assessor. The task is 

identical in the computerized version, only the instructions are provided by the computer and children sort 

pictures similar to the cards on the computer screen. The reason for the switch to the computerized version is 

that it allows the assessment to capture response time, which is not possible using the physical card version. 

When assessing cognitive flexibility, it becomes more important to capture response time as children get 

older. Feedback from field staff indicates that the children enjoy the task and see the computerized DCCS as 

a break from the cognitive assessment questions.

The Numbers Reversed task, the second assessment of executive function included in the ECLS-K:2011 child 

assessment, is identical to the Numbers Reversed task included in the kindergarten, first-grade, and secondgrade data collections. This task assesses the child’s working memory. It is a backward digit span task that 

requires the child to repeat an orally presented sequence of numbers in the reverse order in which the 

numbers are presented. For example, if presented with the sequence “3...5,” the child would be expected to 

say “5...3.” Children are given five 2-number sequences. If the child gets three consecutive 2-number 

sequences incorrect, then the Numbers Reversed task ends. If the child is successful with sequences of two 

numbers, the child is then given five 3-number sequences. The sequences become increasingly longer, up to a 

maximum of eight numbers, until the child gets three consecutive number sequences incorrect (or completes 

all number sequences).

Child Questionnaire. Prior to the start of the direct cognitive assessment, children will be asked to complete 

a self-administered, computerized questionnaire. The Child Questionnaire (CQ) will be administered on a 

computer using audio-CASI, a software system that reads the instructions and questionnaire items to the 

child, while the same text is displayed on a laptop’s screen. Children will choose answers to the questions by 

selecting responses directly on the touch-sensitive screen of the laptop. After answering a question, the child 

will click on a “next” button and continue to the next question in the self-administered questionnaire.

The majority of items in the CQ come from the Self-Description Questionnaire (SDQ; Marsh 1992); other 

questions are drawn from the National Institute of Health’s Toolbox for the Assessment of Neurological and 

Behavioral Function and the other published scales noted below. (Appendix A includes the programmer 

specifications for the audio-CASI child questionnaire, which indicate the exact instructions to be provided to 

the child and the items that will be administered.) The CQ consists of 37 statements, which children will 

respond to using various 4- and 5-point rating scales. Items include those measuring children’s interest in 

reading, mathematics, and science; relationships with peers; occurrences of peer victimization; and overall 

happiness with different aspects of life (e.g., attention from parents, hobbies and free time activities). 

Depending on the rating scale, children will be asked to indicate how true each statement is for them or how 

often they feel certain emotions or experience certain behaviors. 
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The child questionnaire is a new component for the ECLS-K:2011, but a similar instrument (the SDQ in its 

entirety) was successfully used in the ECLS-K third- and fifth-grade data collections as a hard-copy self-report 

instrument. The ECLS-K child questionnaire was revised for the ECLS-K:2011 based on the 

recommendations of a Socioemotional Content Review Panel (CRP) that was convened in October 2012. 

Changes made to the instrument include the following:

 Items asking children about their interest and competence in “all school subjects” were edited to 

specifically refer to science. Similar items on reading and math remain in the questionnaire.

 Questions on externalizing and internalizing problem behaviors were dropped. Reports of 

externalizing and internalizing problem behaviors are still obtained from parents and teachers.

 Items already tested and validated in other studies were added to the ECLS-K:2011 CQ 

instrument to measure children’s prosocial behavior (Zimmer-Gembeck, Geiger, and Crick 2005; 

Crick and Grotpeter 1995), fear of negative evaluation (La Greca and Stone 1993), peer 

victimization (adapted from Espelage and Holt 2001), and life satisfaction (NIH Toolbox for the 

Assessment of Neurological and Behavioral Function 2012).

Data from the national administration of the CQ will enable researchers to compare students’ self-ratings of 

interest and competence in various school subjects, as well as their feelings of social distress and life 

satisfaction, to the students’ performance on assessment items in the reading, math, and science domains. 

As mentioned above, in the ECLS-K, the child questionnaire was administered using a paper form. The 

assessor read the items and response categories to the child and the child marked his or her answer on the 

hard-copy form. This procedure was initiated to ensure that the child’s reading ability did not hinder or affect 

the administration of the items. At the end of the assessment after the child had returned to his or her 

classroom, the assessor entered the child’s responses from the paper form into a laptop. 

For the spring 2014 third-grade data collection, an audio-CASI version of the child questionnaire will be used. 

Generally, self-administered procedures evoke a greater sense of privacy, which leads to more self-disclosure 

(Sudman and Bradburn 1974; Tourangeau and Smith 1996; Turner et al. 1998). Because the respondent is 

controlling the pace of the question-answer process, this gives the respondent more time to process the 

questions being asked and give more accurate answers, which is even more critical in surveying specific 

populations such as children (De Leeuw and Collins 1997; Turner et al. 1998). 

To accommodate the variation in children’s reading ability levels, item text and response options are audio 

recorded and read to the child, who will be listening to the recording through headphones. Headphones will 

be used to make it easier for the child to hear the item text, to limit distractions from other children in the 

assessment area, and to enhance the feeling of privacy (De Leeuw, Hox, Kef, and Van Hattum 1997). Only 

the child will be able to hear the question being asked, and after an answer is provided it will disappear from 

the screen.
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Physical Measurements and Hearing Evaluations. In addition to the child questionnaire and the 

cognitive assessment, the ECLS-K:2011 direct child assessments will include measures of the children’s height 

and weight and, for selected children, hearing evaluations.

In the fall 2012 second-grade round of data collection, hearing sensitivity and middle ear functioning were 

measured in a 30 percent subsample of the national sample. These hearing evaluations will again be 

conducted with the hearing subsample children in the spring third-grade round. The combination of two 

rounds of hearing data on the same subsample of children will provide important information on the 

prevalence and persistence of hearing problems in children during the elementary school years.

The hearing evaluation protocol used in fall 2012 will be used again in the spring third-grade data collection, 

and the entire evaluation is expected to take about 15 minutes. The protocol includes:

 Asking the child a short set of hearing-related questions (appendix B). The results of these 

questions will aid analysts in the interpretation of the collected evaluation data;

 Conducting a brief visual inspection of the ears;

 Obtaining measures of middle ear function in both ears; and

 Obtaining specific audiometric thresholds. It is expected that initially thresholds at three primary 

frequencies will be obtained in each ear (2000, 4000, and 8000 Hz, with a retest of 2000 Hz for 

test reliability). Additional frequencies (1000, 3000, and 6000 Hz) will be obtained as time and 

children’s attention permit.

As part of data collection, ambient noise levels in the testing rooms will be obtained because background 

noise can affect measurement. As in the fall second-grade round, the equipment specified by the 

cosponsoring agency (National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders; NIDCD) for 

evaluating hearing and measuring ambient noise will be used. Each participating child’s parent will receive a 

letter with information about his or her child’s hearing evaluation a month or two after the evaluation.

Parent Interviews. A parent interview will be administered to one parent/guardian of each child in the 

ECLS-K:2011 study. The interviews will be developed in English and then translated into Spanish. For 

parents who speak neither English nor Spanish, home and community interpreters will be used when 

available to administer the English-language version to parents, translating the English version to the parent’s 

native language during the interview. The spring third-grade parent interview includes the same types of 

questions (in terms of topics and format) that have been previously fielded in the ECLS-K, earlier rounds of 

the ECLS-K:2011, and other NCES studies (e.g., the ECLS-B, the National Household Education Surveys 

Program (NHES), the Education Longitudinal Survey of 2002 (ELS:2002), and the National Education 

Longitudinal Survey of 1988 (NELS:88)). More specifically, the parent instrument will ask about parent 

involvement with the school; family structure; the use of a non-English language in the home; the home 

environment; before-and after- school care; nonresident parents; parental warmth, discipline, and 
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communication with the child; the parent’s psychological well-being and health; household food security; 

parent education; parent employment; and household income. Parents will also be asked to report on their 

children’s experiences with peer victimization, social skills and behaviors, executive function, physical activity, 

health, and disabilities. There are some new items included in the third-grade parent interview that are 

intended to indirectly assess working memory, or the child’s capacity to hold information in mind and 

manipulate that information in order to reach a goal. Working memory is a component of executive function 

and is considered to be important for success in school. These new items ask about the child’s ability to 

follow multi-step instructions and persist towards a goal without reminders. 

Teacher Questionnaires. Teachers of sampled children will complete the teacher questionnaires. The 

teacher-/classroom-level instrument (“TQA”) includes questions about the teachers’ own background and 

education, class materials, and teaching practices. The TQA questionnaire also has teachers provide 

information on the types of materials being used to teach the ECLS-K:2011 students, what and how the 

students are being taught, the characteristics of the students’ classrooms, and the background and experience 

of the teachers. Teachers will also be given a short curriculum-level questionnaire (TQS) with items asking 

about the topics and skills taught in the classroom in the areas of reading, math, science, and social studies. If 

the teacher is unable to answer some of the questions in the TQS questionnaire because he or she does not 

teach the specific subject being asked about, the teacher is asked to pass the questionnaire to another teacher 

who is able to answer those particular questions. The instructions at the start of the TQS questionnaire 

describe who should complete it; ECLS-K:2011 field staff will be trained to assist teachers in determining to 

whom the TQS questionnaire should be given if the general classroom teacher is not an appropriate 

respondent for selected questions. (See appendix D for the TQA and TQS questionnaires.)

Teachers also will be asked to complete a child-specific questionnaire (“TQC”) about each of the sampled 

children in their classroom. The questionnaire will contain items about children’s skills in the areas of 

language and literacy, mathematics, science, and executive functioning; children’s social skills and behaviors; 

children’s experiences with peer victimization (as a victim and as the aggressor); and information about 

program placements and special services that each child may receive. These data obtained from teachers can 

be compared to the results of direct assessments administered to the sampled children. As results from 

additional years of assessments become available, a picture of children’s skills over time can be developed. 

(See appendix D for the TQC questionnaire.)

Special education teachers and related service providers will be asked to complete questionnaires for ECLSK:2011 students with an Individualized Education Program (IEP) on file at the school. The information 

obtained through these questionnaires will be useful in examining special education curricula and the services 

being received by children with disabilities. (See appendix E for the Special Education Teacher 

questionnaires.)
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School Administrator Questionnaires. The School Administrator Questionnaire (SAQ) will be completed 

by the school administrators in the schools attended by the children in the study.5 There will be two versions 

of the questionnaire: one for schools that completed an SAQ in a prior round of the study (“continuing 

schools”) and one for any school that did not previously complete the SAQ, either because the school is a 

new school into which an ECLS-K:2011 student has transferred or because the school did not complete the 

SAQ in any previous study round. In order to reduce respondent burden, the administrator questionnaire for 

continuing schools will not contain questions included in the SAQ in previous rounds about characteristics 

that are unlikely to change from year to year. The SAQ instrument includes a broad range of questions about 

the school setting, policies, and practices at both the school level and in specific grades, as well as questions 

about the school administrator and the teaching staff. These items will help researchers understand the school 

contexts for ECLS-K:2011 students. Comparisons can be made between children attending different types of 

schools, including public and private schools (with private schools being further identified as religious or 

nonreligious); rural, urban, and suburban schools; and schools of different sizes. Data from this questionnaire 

can be used with data from the child assessments and teacher questionnaires to investigate the degree to 

which educational outcomes of various groups of children are associated with the differences in the schools 

that the children attend. 

A.1.5 Pilot Tests of the Third-, Fourth-, and Fifth-Grade Direct Child Assessment, 

Child Questionnaire, and Online School Administrator Questionnaire

Several pilot tests were conducted in the spring of 2013 to test items to be included in the direct child 

assessments in future rounds of data collection and also to test some changes that were proposed for the 

study procedures and instrumentation (OMB# 1850-0803 v.75). The goals of the pilot tests included:

 Examining the psychometric characteristics of reading, math, and science items that are being 

considered for inclusion in the ECLS-K:2011 child assessments in third, fourth, and fifth grade. 

The items that were tested as part of the pilot test include many developed specifically for the 

ECLS-K:2011, as well as others that have been used in the ECLS-K, the Education Longitudinal 

Study of 2002 (ELS:2002), or the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88) 

assessments. Pilot testing of the newly-developed and previously-fielded items provided the 

opportunity to examine the item characteristics with calibration of item difficulties on the same 

scale for items derived from different sources. Also, feedback on how children responded to the 

assessment items and suggestions for improving the assessment items were obtained.

 Assessing the feasibility of administering an audio computer-assisted self-interview (audio-CASI) 

child questionnaire (CQ) in the national third-grade data collection. The pilot test examined the 

clarity and effectiveness of the assessor instructions, observed children’s reactions to the audioCASI application, and identified any software or hardware issues with the audio-CASI 

application, including the laptop and headphones.

 

5 The questions about school characteristics may be completed by a designee, but the study requests that the administrator complete the section 

about his/her own characteristics and background.
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 Testing the use of an online School Administrator Questionnaire (SAQ), including evaluation of 

usability issues with the technology and procedures for an online questionnaire, the effects of an 

online format on perceived respondent burden, and administrators’ general preferences for an 

online questionnaire compared to a paper version. Some respondents had responses in the online 

questionnaire “pre-filled” using data from their completion of the paper version of the 

questionnaire in order to test if the online administration format would reduce respondent 

burden for those administrators who have participated in multiple rounds of the study.

A.1.5.1 Pilot Tests of the Third-, Fourth-, and Fifth-Grade Direct Child Assessment, and Child 

Questionnaire

Sample and Data Collection Procedures for the Assessment Battery and Child Questionnaire Pilot 

Tests. The assessment battery pilot test sample included 35 elementary schools in 5 geographic regions, in 

which 2,724 children completed the assessment. Most of the schools included kindergarten through fifth 

grade, but 18 schools also taught sixth grade. Assessments were conducted with children in third through 

sixth grade. Sample sizes were calculated to provide at least 700 responses for each item in the cognitive 

assessment.

The assessment battery pilot test sample was a purposive sample, but attempts were made to include schools 

from different locales and sectors (i.e., public, non-religious private, and parochial schools), economic 

diversity, and racial/ethnic diversity. Of the children who participated in the assessment pilot test, 69 percent 

were white, 32 percent were Hispanic, 5 percent were Black, 3 percent were Asian, and less than one percent 

were Native Hawaiian/Other Pacific Islander.

6

In a subset of 10 schools, 265 third- and fourth-graders participated in the feasibility test of the audio-CASI 

child questionnaire. These children did not complete the child assessment. The subsample was a purposive 

sample; again, the subset included schools from different locales and sectors and, as much as possible, the 

child sample was racially/ethnically diverse. Of the children who participated in the CQ pilot test, 62 percent 

were white, 36 percent were Hispanic, 7 percent were Black, 5 percent were Asian, and less than one percent

were Native Hawaiian/Other Pacific Islander.7

Participation in the child assessment or CQ component was limited to English-speaking children from 

schools that are not part of the ECLS-K:2011 national study and have not participated in any prior ECLSK:2011 field test, pilot test, or cognitive laboratory activities. Children were not eligible to participate if they 

required accommodations such as a sign language interpreter, Braille, a health care aide or assistive device, or 

other special arrangements or assistance. 

The assessment and CQ pilot tests occurred in April, May, and June of 2013. Data for the assessment battery 

and child questionnaire pilot tests were collected by twenty-eight field staff. The general data collection 

 

6 These percentages add to more than 100 percent, as some schools reported two races for children.

7 These percentages add to more than 100 percent, as some schools reported two races for children.
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methods used in the child pilot tests were largely the same as those that have been used successfully for the 

data collection rounds of ECLS-K:2011 that have been conducted to date. The assessment visit at each 

school lasted approximately 4 days.

The assessments were administered as one-on-one direct assessments with questions presented on an easel.

Unlike the direct cognitive assessments in the national ECLS-K:2011 data collections which are computerassisted, in the pilot test assessors recorded children’s answers using a score sheet and pen. In order to test 

many different items without overburdening the children, the pilot test assessment easels were developed 

from items divided into four reading forms, two math forms, and two science forms. These forms were

spiraled such that each child received one of four versions of the reading assessment and one of two versions 

of either the math or the science assessment (e.g., reading 1 and math 1, reading 2 and math 2, reading 3 and 

science 1, reading 4 and science 2, etc.). The administration order of the subject areas was counter balanced 

(i.e., some easels presented the reading items before the math or science items, whereas other easels presented

the reading items after the math or science items) to guard against practice and fatigue effects. Administration 

of the child assessment lasted approximately 45 minutes to an hour.

In the CQ pilot test, the audio-CASI program presented the item text and response options on a laptop equipped 

with headphones and a monitor that has stylus input capabilities. Children listened to the task instructions, item 

text, and response options using headphones while following along on the screen. Children used a stylus to touch 

their response option on the screen, skipped questions they did not wish to answer, and changed answers if they 

wished to do so. Administration of the CQ lasted approximately 15 minutes.

Staff was also trained to record their observations about children’s behaviors and responses to both the 

assessment and the CQ. Each assessor kept a general diary of pilot test experiences, including notes on 

participants’ reactions to the assessment items. In addition, assessors completed a separate diary specific to 

the CQ, in which they recorded observations on the audio-CASI and any difficulties the children had 

interacting with the computer program.

Results of the Assessment Battery Pilot Test. At the time of the submission of this OMB package, the 

data from the assessment battery pilot test are still being analyzed. In general, however, new items that 

performed well will be added to the library of existing ECLS-K and ECLS-K:2011 items to create the national 

3rd, 4th, and 5th grade reading, math, and science assessments.

Results of the CQ Pilot Test. The audio-CASI format was successfully used in the pilot test. Most children 

did not experience significant difficulty in using the headphones, stylus pen, or the touch-screen functionality 

of the laptop. The directions to use these technologies were understandable and most children adapted 

quickly to the format. In addition, the feedback received indicated that most of the children enjoyed the task 

and the chance to use the computer.
A-11

On average, the CQ took 13.76 minutes for children to compete. In order to be included as part of the 

national assessment, the number of items in the CQ was reduced so that the instrument takes about 10 

minutes to complete. Analyses of the ECLS-K:2011 pilot test data and data for similar items fielded in the 

ECLS-K were conducted to determine which items could be dropped while still maintaining desired content 

coverage with a sufficient number of items that could be scaled together.

The introductory text, in which the assessor explains the task to the child and how to choose a response and 

adjust the volume, has been streamlined to be less cumbersome and more efficient.

In addition, because the same laptops will not be available for use in the national data collection, a new laptop 

with similar capabilities will be selected and used for the third-grade assessments. Field staff and project staff 

observers also noted some issues with the particular audio-CASI software that was used, such as the program 

freezing or only displaying certain pieces of text on the screen. Upon review, it has been determined that the 

software itself is somewhat problematic and likely caused these problems; thus the national CQ will instead be 

supported by a more updated version of audio-CASI software. The screen appearance and functionality will 

be very similar to what was used in the field test, and the new software does not have the same problems 

observed in the pilot test.

A.1.5.2 Pilot Tests of the Online School Administrator Questionnaire (SAQ)

Sample and Data Collection Procedures. The pilot test of the online SAQ was conducted primarily with 

school administrators from schools that agreed to participate in the child assessment and child questionnaire 

pilot tests. The sample was supplemented with additional school administrators from schools in districts that 

agreed to participate in the child pilot tests, even if the schools themselves decided not to participate in the 

child assessment or CQ pilot tests. Forty-seven administrators agreed to participate in the online SAQ pilot 

test, and they were randomly placed into one of two treatment groups:

 Returning: Administrators in this group were first asked to complete the paper version of the SAQ 

that is used in the national data collection. When that SAQ was completed and returned, the data 

were entered into a database within a week upon receipt of the questionnaire. The administrators 

were then sent an email asking to complete the same questionnaire online and providing a secure link 

for access to the survey. Responses to a selected subset of questions from the paper version were 

uploaded into the online version of the SAQ, so that when the administrator viewed the online SAQ, 

these responses were pre-filled and available for updating. Returning administrators were also asked 

some questions soliciting their feedback on the online system at the end of the online SAQ, such as 

experiences with the paper and online forms, opinions on the online format of the survey, the level 

of effort needed to complete the questionnaire with pre-filled responses, and the ease-of-use of the 

online system. Twenty-two respondents were recruited for this treatment group.

 New: Administrators in this group were asked to complete only the online SAQ without any prefilled responses. They were given a version of feedback questions that did not include questions on 

the paper SAQ or issues related to pre-filled responses. Twenty-four respondents were recruited for 

this treatment group.
A-12

The online SAQ pilot test occurred during the same time frame as the assessment and CQ pilot tests; that is, 

April, May, and June of 2013. Once administrators agreed to participate, they were sent either the paper SAQ 

and a $40 incentive check (if in the returning treatment group), or a welcome letter and $25 incentive check (if 

in the new treatment group). Participants in the new treatment group were emailed the online survey 

invitation a few days after the welcome letter was mailed. 

The questionnaires and survey invitations were sent from Westat, and field staff followed up with 

participating administrators to answer questions and remind them about the survey while in the schools for 

the assessments and/or CQs. One experienced field staff member was selected to continue follow-up 

telephone calls with administrators, particularly those in schools that were not also participating in the 

assessment or CQ pilot tests. After about 2 weeks of non-activity on the online survey, reminder emails were 

also sent, as were emails thanking participants once the online SAQ was completed.

Results of the online SAQ Pilot Test. As of late June 2013, 46 administrators were recruited for the online 

SAQ pilot test; 22 for the returning treatment group, and 24 for the new treatment group. Fifteen of the 

administrators in the returning group (68 percent) participated. Twelve administrators (50 percent) from the 

new treatment group completed the online SAQ.

An analysis of the responses to the debriefing questions indicates that while the respondents were fairly 

positive about the online format, they did not find it particularly well suited to the School Administrator 

Questionnaire. Several explained that they need to go to various sources to answer the questions and having 

to answer the questions online made it difficult to seek out these sources. While some of the responses to 

questions may be contained in online records, others need to be collected from various school staff, such as 

teachers, guidance counselors, and the school secretary. When looking at a paper questionnaire, the 

administrators are able to determine which questions could be asked of which school staff person and ask all 

the necessary questions of that person at one time; such a procedure is less feasible and efficient with an

online questionnaire since questions are presented on many different screens. This makes the completion of 

the online SAQ inefficient and perhaps even more time-consuming than the paper questionnaire.

The respondents gave positive reviews to the survey navigation and ease-of-use when answering questions, 

and said that they are generally comfortable using an online format. The average time respondents reported 

spending on the online survey was 51 minutes. 

In summary, most administrators did not strongly agree that having an online format would make completion 

of the SAQ any easier. While several did say that having an online survey might seem more appealing than a 

paper questionnaire, the complaints about completing this particular questionnaire online (e.g., the nature of 

the questions and the need to consult with others to complete it) seemed to override the appeal for this 

particular questionnaire being online.
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A.2 Purposes and Uses of the Data

The ECLS-K:2011 will provide rich data sets that are generally designed to serve two purposes: descriptive 

and explanatory. It will provide descriptive data at a national level related to (1) children’s status at entry into 

kindergarten and at different points in children’s elementary school careers, (2) children’s transition into 

school and into the later elementary grade levels, and (3) children’s school progress through the fifth grade. 

Additionally, it will provide rich data that will enable researchers to test hypotheses about how a wide range of 

child, family, school, classroom, nonparental care, education provider, and community characteristics relate to 

experiences and success in school. 

In addition to the descriptive objectives mentioned above, the data will describe the diversity of young 

children with respect to demographic characteristics such as race/ethnicity, language, and school readiness. 

Such information is critical for establishing policies that are sensitive to this diversity. The longitudinal nature 

of the study will enable researchers to study cognitive, socioemotional, and physical growth, as well as relate 

trajectories of growth and change to variation in home, school, and before- and after-school care setting 

experiences in the elementary grades. Summer learning or learning loss, which can have a considerable impact 

on children’s educational progress, can also be examined with data collected in the fall 2011 and fall 2012 data 

collections. Ultimately, the ECLS-K:2011 data set will be used by policymakers, educators, and researchers to 

consider the ways in which children are educated in our nation’s schools and to develop effective approaches 

to education. It will be particularly valuable to policymakers, as the ECLS-K:2011 is being launched a dozen 

years after the inception of the ECLS-K. Analyses of the two cohorts will provide valuable information about 

the influences of changing policy and demographic environments on children’s early learning and 

development.

A.2.1 Research Issues Addressed in the ECLS-K:2011

Today’s early education environment differs from that of the past in numerous ways. Examples of the many 

changes that have occurred within schools and within the larger society in recent years are presented in 

exhibit A-1 and include changes at the policy, state, school, family, and societal levels. ECLS-K and ECLS-B 

data have been used by numerous researchers to examine many of these topics. The widespread use of ECLS 

data is a testament to the importance of the ECLS program. At the same time, both prior studies leave gaps in 

the research questions we may answer with the data, which is perhaps inevitable because changes in policy, 

research, and society are often difficult to anticipate. The ECLS-K:2011 seeks to preserve the strengths of the 

earlier studies by retaining much of the same content, while incorporating appropriate modifications. This 

allows for the use of ECLS-K:2011 data to answer some of these recently-emerging questions, while at the 

same time allowing for the study of a new cohort of children growing up in new circumstances and the ability 

to make comparisons with the earlier cohorts. Below, we discuss some of the important developments that 

are particularly relevant to the design of the ECLS-K:2011.
A-14

A.2.1.1 Developments in Early Education Policy

A major change in early education occurred when the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) was 

reauthorized as the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) and signed into law in early 2002. ESEA 2002 set clear 

expectations for student achievement, mandated annual assessments of all children in grades 3 through 8 to 

measure progress toward state-defined goals, and had strong reporting requirements for schools, districts, and 

states. ESEA 2002 aims to narrow or eliminate achievement gaps in education and called for accountability 

and higher standards for achievement. ESEA 2002 is several years overdue for reauthorization, but debates 

continue over appropriate reforms. In 2010, President Barack Obama released his Blueprint for Reform for 

the reauthorization of ESEA, which is awaiting congressional action. In the meantime, The Secretary of 

Education and President Obama have granted some states flexibility in meeting some of the NCLB 

requirements in exchange for meaningful reform at the state and local levels. 

Among the requirements for receiving a waiver from NCLB requirements are the state’s development of 

criteria for evaluating teacher and principal performance beyond a focus on single standardized test scores 

and the creation of systems for teacher and principal development. These criteria can include observation, 

peer review, and feedback from parents and students, as well as student growth rates, but must also set new 

performance targets for improving student achievement and closing achievement gaps. In addition, states 

must develop accountability systems to identify and reward high-performing schools and to identify and 

intervene in the lowest performing schools to help them improve student performance.

Exhibit A-1. Examples of important developments relevant to the ECLS-K:2011

Policy changes

– Passage of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) 2002

– President Obama’s 2010 Blueprint for Reform proposal for reauthorization of ESEA

– Recent U.S. Department of Education invitation to states to apply for flexibility in meeting specific ESEA requirements in 

exchange for meaningful reform at the state and local levels

– Race to the Top

– The Common Core State Standards Initiative

– The New Generation Science Standards

– E-GOV Act of 2002 promoting use of the web and web-based applications to provide access to and enhance delivery of 

government services

Economic challenges

– Global recession and financial crisis beginning 2007/2008

– American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009

– State and local budget constraints and cuts

– Sequestration of a portion of federal funds across all administrative departments in 2013

Changes in schools and challenges to schools

– Growth in school choice and increasing number of charter schools

– Increased use of technology and the Internet in schools

– Increased use of mobile devices and “bring your own device” policies

– New technologies allow different types of classroom interactions (e.g., remote personal response systems, social networking, 

digital textbooks)

– Blended learning where in-person instruction and technology-delivered information are combined
A-15

– Differentiated instruction

– Segmentation by subject in elementary school

– Value-added assessments

– Teacher salary and tenure reform, including incorporating measures of teacher effectiveness

– Training teachers to use technology effectively and to become online educators

– Growth of Hispanic, Asian, and multi-race child population

– Growth in English language learners (ELL) in schools, especially at young ages

– Use of data management systems to track and monitor student achievement and behavior and the use of data-driven decision 

making

– The increased use of “response to intervention” approaches to intervention in the general education setting and for the 

determination of eligibility for special education

– Increased focus on preventing problem behavior

Child health

– Epidemic of obesity and associated rise in diabetes

– Rise in incidence of:

 Allergies 

 Asthma

 Autism

 Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder

– Decline in incidence of:

 Specific learning disabilities

Scientific developments

– Advances in neuroimaging techniques (e.g., fMRIs) that have led to advances in our understanding of the development of 

children’s learning, memory, attention, and language

– Advances in neurological research and emphasis on executive function

– Emerging research showing the trainability of cognitive processes (e.g., Rueda, et al., 2005)

– Recent developments in cognitive science and learning theory

Both ESEA 2002 and the Blueprint for Reform emphasize the importance of using highly qualified teachers 

in the classroom. However, the programs differ in their definitions of “highly qualified.” ESEA 2002 requires 

that all teachers of core subjects have a minimum of a bachelor’s degree, full state certification, and a 

demonstrated competence in each core academic subject they teach. The Blueprint for Reform calls for states 

to define standards for “effective teacher,” “effective principal,” “highly effective teacher,” and “highly 

effective principal.” States awarded flexibility waivers will set their own criteria for evaluating teachers and 

principals.

Several of the recent reform proposals reflect a movement from application of uniform proficiency goals to 

measurement of individual growth in students’ achievement. This shift would call for new types of 

assessments that are not just cross-sectional measures, but ones that can detect individual student growth over 

time.

The recent adoption of common core state standards in English language arts and mathematics across the 

country represents another significant change in the education policy environment that can be examined 

given the data that is collected by the ECLS-K:2011 study. The Common Core State Standards Initiative, 

launched in 2010 by state policy leaders in the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State 

School Officers, seeks to create common standards that align curricula, college and career readiness, and state 
A-16

tests to the highest standards around the country. Forty-five states have adopted the common core standards. 

Recent comparisons with the state standards being replaced indicate that the common core standards are 

more challenging than most individual state initiatives (Carmichael, Martino, Porter-Magee, and Wilson 2010). 

Beginning with the spring first-grade data collection, the ECLS-K:2011 included items about instruction of 

language arts and mathematics in the classroom-level teacher questionnaire to reflect the appropriate gradelevel standards as described by the common core state standards.

In addition to changing policies and approaches to early education and research, the United States is still 

facing economic challenges that will affect the Federal budget in the coming years. The deep recession and 

the associated high unemployment rate and tightened state and local budgets have direct impacts on districts 

and schools. Reduced services and staff may well affect children’s experiences in school. Beginning with the 

spring first-grade data collection, the school administrator questionnaire included questions asking about 

actions that may have occurred as a result of changes in funding, such as staff additions or contractions in the 

past year, changes in staff burden and salaries, adjustments in class sizes, and increases in family poverty (that 

is, in the proportion of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch). These items were included because 

the current economic climate may also affect children’s home lives if the family experienced changes in their 

economic circumstances or if friends and family members did. Researchers have studied the effect of the 

recession on child well-being and found many adverse effects, including an increase in the number of 

households classified as “food insecure” (Sell et al., 2010). According to the “NSLP Fact Sheet” of the Food 

and Nutrition Service, USDA,

8

the number of students enrolled in the National School Lunch Program, i.e., 

those receiving free or reduced-price lunch, continues to increase. For example, in 1990, over 24 million 

children participated in the program, while in 2011, that number was greater than 31.8 million children.

A.2.1.2 School Readiness

Education policymakers and researchers continue to debate the most appropriate ways to promote school 

readiness. Most experts agree that school readiness is a multifaceted phenomenon that encompasses several 

domains of child development. In addition to cognitive development and pre-academic skills (e.g., letter and 

number recognition, emerging literacy), school readiness is conceptualized as involving the whole child, 

including health and physical well-being, language acquisition, social and emotional development, and interest 

in and enthusiasm for learning. It is therefore important for the ECLS-K:2011, like the ECLS-K and the 

ECLS-B, to capture all of these domains to fully understand how children’s early learning and development 

are affected by shifts in policy and by changes in children’s lives.

One effect of ESEA 2002 is a change in curricular emphasis in the early grades. ESEA 2002 emphasizes 

evidence-based early literacy activities that stress the development of specific literacy skills. ESEA 2002

 

8 www.fns.usda.gov/cnd/lunch/aboutlunch/nslpfactsheet.pdf as of 5/21/2013
A-17

includes two initiatives, Reading First and Early Reading First, which seek to lay the foundation for future 

school success by stressing the following five skills to enable children to become proficient readers:

 Phonemic awareness: the ability to hear and identify sounds in spoken words;

 Phonics: the relationship between the letters of written language and the sounds of spoken language;

 Vocabulary: the words students must know to communicate effectively;

 Fluency in reading: the capacity to read text accurately and quickly; and

 Comprehension: the ability to understand and gain meaning from what is read.

ESEA 2002 and these reading programs view literacy as a learned skill that requires coherent skill-based 

instruction using scientifically supported curricula provided by highly qualified teachers. By ensuring that the 

ECLS-K:2011 assessments and teacher questionnaires measure these skills, the ECLS-K:2011 can be used to

examine children’s emerging literacy and cognitive development since the passage of ESEA 2002. The focus 

of ESEA 2002 on early literacy skills has essentially shifted discussions of school readiness from the range of 

domains mentioned above to two: (1) language development and (2) cognition and general knowledge. It will 

be important to examine the trajectories of other important dimensions of school readiness, such as social 

competence, approaches to learning, and other indicators of socioemotional development, in light of this 

aforementioned shift. 

A.2.1.3 Executive Functioning

Recent research in the cognitive and neurological sciences is providing important insights into developmental 

processes associated with school readiness. Of particular interest is research on the importance of executive 

functioning for learning and academic achievement (e.g., Blair and Razza, 2007; Posner and Rothbart, 2006). 

“Executive functioning” refers to a set of interdependent processes that work together to accomplish 

purposeful, goal-directed activities and include working memory, attention, inhibitory control, and other selfregulatory processes. Executive functioning processes work to regulate and orchestrate cognition, emotion, 

and behavior to help a child to learn in the classroom. For example, executive control, which is associated 

with the prefrontal cortex, involves the ability to allocate attention, to hold information in working memory, 

and to withhold an inappropriate response (Casey et al., 2000). Not only are these cognitive and behavioral 

processes predictive of reading and math achievement (Blair and Razza, 2007), but there is also emerging 

research that indicates that some of these cognitive processes are trainable (Rueda et al., 2005; Klingberg et 

al., 2005) and can be improved upon in regular public school classrooms without costly interventions 

(Diamond et al., 2007).

Many other cognitive processes are necessary for learning and achievement. For example, learning, whether it 

involves reading comprehension, solving applied mathematics problems, or something else, involves the 

interaction between working memory and long-term memory and the formation of linkages between the two. 

The ECLS-K:2011 will be strengthened by obtaining direct and indirect measures that capture specific 

learning issues such as attention problems, memory problems, inability to withhold inappropriate responses, 
A-18

and language issues. In particular, little attention has been paid to differences in these areas across 

racial/ethnic subgroups or between low-income and other children (Noble et al., 2005). The ECLS-K:2011 

will provide information to allow for the investigation of such differences. 

A.2.1.4 Demographic Changes

The United States is also experiencing demographic shifts in its population. Ours is becoming an increasingly 

diverse society (Frey, 2011). Recent analyses of decennial census data show that from 2000 to 2010, the 

growth in the nation’s child population was due primarily to increases in the Hispanic, Asian, and other 

groups who are not White, Black, or American Indian (Frey 2011). The demographic shift is especially 

evident in the school-aged population. In 2009, 21 percent of children ages 5 to 17 (or 11.2 million children) 

spoke a language other than English at home and 5 percent spoke English with difficulty. Of those speaking 

English with difficulty, 73 percent spoke Spanish, 13 percent spoke an Asian or Pacific Island language, 10 

percent spoke an Indo-European language other than Spanish, and 4 percent spoke some other language at 

home (Aud et al., 2011).

Language is not the only challenge for many of these children, particularly those born outside the United 

States. Many children born outside of the U.S. who immigrate here, especially those with parents from 

Mexico and Central America, come from larger families, families where the parents have lower parental 

education, and families with lower family income than the native-born (Larsen, 2004). Also, families from 

other cultures may have different normative expectations for how they should interact with schools and 

teachers. The ECLS-K:2011 will enable researchers to examine how schools and teachers are meeting the 

needs of these students and their families and to measure the effectiveness of those efforts.

A.2.1.5 Hearing Impairments in the Early Elementary School Years

Hearing evaluations are being included in the ECLS-K:2011 because they have high public utility and 

impairments can affect children’s educational experiences and learning. Approximately 15 percent of U.S. 

children aged six to nineteen have a measurable hearing loss in one or both ears (Niskar et. al., 1998). Any 

degree of hearing loss can be educationally handicapping for children. Even children with mild to moderate 

hearing losses can miss up to 50 percent of classroom discussions. Unmanaged hearing loss in children can 

affect their speech and language development, academic capabilities and educational development, and selfimage and social/emotional development (Cunningham, et al., 2003). The American Academy of Audiology 

recommends that all children be screened for hearing loss at least once during the preschool years. They also 

recommend that hearing loss be ruled out whenever a child is being considered for special education services 

(American Academy of Audiology, 1997). Inclusion of a hearing evaluation in the ECLS-K:2011 will provide 

researchers with a unique ability to look at associations between hearing loss and a host of educational 

experiences and outcomes in a large-scale nationally representative study, to examine the emergence of 
A-19

hearing difficulties across time, and to see whether and how the timing of the emergence of hearing 

difficulties may be related to both environmental factors and educational experiences and outcomes.

A.3 Use of Improved Information Technology

When feasible, available technology will be used to improve data quality and reduce respondent and school 

burden. The ECLS-K:2011 parent interviews and child assessments will be conducted using computerassisted interviewing (CAI). Using CAI will increase data collection efficiency by permitting preloads of 

available data about the sampled schools and children, on-line editing of information as it is entered (e.g., 

correcting data entry errors caught through range and logic checks or correction of information provided in a 

previous round of data collection), and routing of respondents through complex question branching—all of 

which also reduce respondent burden by producing faster interviews and reducing the need to recontact 

respondents to obtain missing information (which would occur, for example, if a field interviewer not using 

CAI does not follow a skip pattern correctly and items that should be asked are not). Parent interviews are 

primarily conducted by telephone; however, field interviewers will conduct interviews with parents without 

telephones or who are difficult to reach by making in-person visits to complete interviews. These in-person 

interviews will also be conducted using CAI on laptop computers. The CAI system has important features 

that will improve the quality of the data and reduce the burden on respondents, as follows:

 Initial Contact: The CAI system will guide the ECLS-K:2011 field interviewer in making contact 

with the parent at the correct phone number or address and with the child at the school and will 

include prompts to help the interviewer identify the correct respondent.

 Routing the Direct Child Assessment: The CAI system will be programmed so the initial routing 

tests at the beginning of the reading, mathematics, and science cognitive assessment subtests will be 

scored by the computer and the appropriate second-stage tests corresponding to the child’s ability 

level will be administered. The benefits of such a two-stage assessment are increased adaptiveness, 

reduced burden for the child, and increased precision of measurement because the assessors do not 

need to score the routing test and select the appropriate second-stage test themselves. In addition, 

there typically are some skip rules programmed into the CAI for reading and math that will skip 

children to a set of questions on a different topic or the next domain if they are struggling and have 

responded to several questions incorrectly. For the executive function numbers reversed task, the CAI 

system accurately determines where the task ends depending on the child’s performance. As 

mentioned above, the computerized version of the executive function Dimensional Change Card Sort 

(DCCS) task allows the assessment to accurately capture response time, which becomes more 

important to capture as children get older. 

 Skip Patterns: The CAI system automatically guides interviewers through the complex skip patterns 

in the parent interviews, thereby reducing respondent burden, reducing potential for interviewer error, 

and shortening the interview administration time. The respondent will not be asked inapplicable 

questions and the interviewers do not need to spend time determining which questions to ask.

 Copying Responses: The CAI system will be programmed to copy responses from one item to 

another and from one round to another to prevent unnecessary repetition of questions and to aid in 

respondents’ recall. For example, information that is provided by the respondent early in the interview 

may be useful later in the interview; such information can be displayed on the screen or used as a 

wording fill for relevant questions to assist the respondent. Additionally, information from the 
A-20

previous waves of data collection can be copied to the current wave’s interview and be verified by the 

respondent, eliminating the need to collect the data again.

 Time Intervals: The CAI system also provides automated time and date prompts that are very useful 

in longitudinal studies to assist respondents in remembering specific time periods. The interview can 

also provide the specific timeframe for the interval between the previous and the current wave of data 

collection, to help respondents provide information without repeating information they had given at 

the previous data collection period.

 Receipt Control: The CAI system will provide for automatic updates to the interview status of study 

participants and will be used to produce status reports that allow timely and ongoing monitoring of 

the survey’s progress.

The use of a CAI system for the ECLS-K:2011 is critical because of the intricate and sometimes difficult skip 

patterns that are part of complex survey instruments and because of the longitudinal nature of the data 

collection in which the same respondent might be interviewed at multiple time points. Without CAI, the 

ECLS-K:2011 instruments would be difficult to administer over repeated measurement periods, and 

respondent burden would be increased.

The child questionnaire will be administered using audio computer-assisted self-interview (audio-CASI) 

technology. With this format, the items and response options are presented to the child on a touchscreen and 

the child enters his or her own responses by touching the screen. The responses are then saved on the laptop 

and will be transmitted along with the data from the assessments. There are several advantages to using an 

audio-CASI version of the child questionnaire. This format provides more privacy to children as they answer 

questions that may be sensitive for them, and administration is more standardized because all children hear 

the items read to them in exactly the same way with the recording. Also, electronic capture of responses 

reduces processing time and the potential for data entry error. 

A computer-based data management system will be used to manage the sample. The sample management 

system uses encrypted data transmission and networking technology to maintain timely information on 

respondents in the sample, including contact, tracking, and case completion data. This system is particularly 

important as children move from one school to another over the course of the ECLS-K:2011 study. The use 

of technology for sample management will maximize tracking efforts, which should have a positive effect on 

the study’s ability to locate movers and achieve acceptable response rates.

New to the third-grade round of data collection is the ECLS-K:2011 Message Center, a secure website 

accessed with a username and password that has been assigned to specific users, namely field staff (field 

managers, school recruiters, and team leaders) and participating school coordinators. The list of children 

enrolled in each school who are participating in the study will be sent to the school coordinator from the data 

collection contractor’s home office as an attachment to a secure message. This method will not only make it 

more convenient for school coordinators to access the list of participating children, but will also greatly 

enhance the security of this list. Because of the nature of the system, the list cannot be printed or forwarded 
A-21

to other school staff. If the school coordinator is amenable, the message system can also be used for other 

types of sensitive communication between the school coordinator and the field staff (for example, when 

informing the field staff that a child has moved to a new school). 

A.4 Efforts to Identify Duplication

The ECLS-K:2011 will not be duplicative of other studies. The ECLS-K is the only other study to collect as 

detailed and extensive information as the ECLS-K:2011 for a cohort of young children and to follow them 

throughout elementary school. The ECLS-K:2011 extends the information obtained by the ECLS-K to a new 

cohort, opens up possibilities to investigate new research questions, and allows important comparisons to be 

made between two kindergarten cohorts attending school a dozen years apart. In addition, the ECLS-K:2011 

has collected data during the children’s second-grade year and plans to collect information during their

fourth-grade year, which the ECLS-K did not.

A literature search was conducted to identify and review research studies with the same study purpose and 

goals as those proposed for the ECLS-K:2011. To be included in the search the research had to be (1) a 

survey-based study of a population with a sample of 1,000 or more, (2) longitudinal in design, and (3) focused 

on children’s cognitive development in the elementary, middle, and/or secondary grades. Although similar 

studies were found, they were generally confined to limited geographic areas (e.g., Baltimore, Maryland; 

Greensboro, North Carolina) or, in the case of studies conducted on the national level (e.g., Prospects, 

Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth [NLSY Child Supplement]), were not based on 

probability samples of kindergartners. For example, Prospects began with first graders and targeted Title 1 

recipients. NLSY79’s Child Supplement targeted the children of female sample members of a householdbased 1979 sample of 14- to 21-year-olds. The Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES), 

which is similar to the ECLS-K:2011 in terms of the content and components included, has followed several 

cohorts of children from preschool through early elementary school. However, FACES has not followed the 

progress of children in school beyond kindergarten or first grade, and the samples are limited to children 

served by Head Start. Studies such as the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88) and 

Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS:2002) began with students in the middle and high school grades. 

Another major finding of the literature review was that most studies used group-administered achievement 

tests, which, for young children, can be less reliable than individually administered assessments. Individually 

administered assessments, like those used in the ECLS-K:2011, allow the assessor to establish rapport and 

offer motivation and supportive conditions so that each child performs to the best of his or her ability.

A.5 Method Used to Minimize Burden on Small Businesses

Private, not-for-profit, and proprietary elementary schools have been drawn into the sample. These 

proprietary and nonprofit schools will benefit from the study’s burden-reducing strategies (e.g., instruction 
A-22

packets for participants, toll-free help lines, and prepaid business return envelopes), which were designed for 

all types of schools.

A.6 Frequency of Data Collection

This submission describes and requests approval for the spring third-grade data collection, which will occur in 

the spring of 2014. The first data collection for the study began in the fall of 2010, and additional data 

collections have occurred in spring 2011, fall 2011, spring 2012, fall 2012, and spring 2013. One of the main 

goals of the ECLS-K:2011 is to measure children’s cognitive, socioemotional, and physical growth and 

development, as well as changes in the contextual characteristics (i.e., family, classroom, school, and 

community factors) that can affect growth. The spring third-grade data collection is one of the periodic 

follow-ups that will collect information to be compared to baseline (kindergarten) information, thereby 

allowing for analyses of change for children and their environments.

After this third-grade year, the study design calls for follow-up collections in the springs of the fourth- and 

fifth-grade years. This frequency of data collection is linked to the rate of change that is expected for children 

of this age and the desire to capture information about children as critical events and transitions are occurring, 

rather than measuring these events retrospectively. Without data collection follow-ups, the study of children’s 

cognitive, socioemotional, and physical development is hindered. Assuming the third-grade collection is as 

successful as the previous collections have been to date, future clearance requests will be submitted for the 

follow-up collections in later grades.

A.7 Special Circumstances of Data Collection

No special circumstances for this information collection are anticipated.

A.8 Consultants Outside the Agency

NCES consulted with a range of outside agencies over the life of the ECLS-K, and such input also has 

informed the ECLS-K:2011 study design and instrumentation, since they draw heavily from the ECLS-K. 

During the early development of the ECLS-K, project staff met with representatives from a wide range of 

federal agencies with an interest in the care and well-being of children (see Table A-1). The goal of this 

activity was to identify policy and research issues and data needs. Similarly, consultation with federal agencies 

has occurred and continues for the ECLS-K:2011. Several of the early consultations with government 

agencies have resulted in interagency agreements funding questions, sections of or full study instruments, and 

components of the child assessments (specifically, the hearing evaluations) to the study instruments.

Project staff has also consulted several other organizations (see Table A-2) that have an interest in the care, 

well-being, and education of young children. The goal of this activity was to obtain additional perspectives on 
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policy and research issues and data needs. While most of this consultation occurred during the design and 

conduct of the ECLS-K, there has be some outside consultation during the design of the ECLS-K:2011. 

Similar to its predecessor, the ECLS-K:2011 represents a collaborative effort by education and health and 

human services agencies. NCES supports the development of the core design of the ECLS-K:2011. Partner 

agencies supporting the inclusion of the supplemental questions or sections of the study instruments that 

enrich the ECLS-K:2011 by providing expert input or funding (or both) have included the Economic 

Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the National Center for Special Education Research 

in the Institute of Education Sciences of the U.S. Department of Education, the Administration for Children 

and Families in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the National Institute of Deafness 

and Other Communication Disorders and the National Eye Institute, both at the National Institutes of 

Health in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The National Institute of Deafness and Other 

Communication Disorders is sponsoring the hearing evaluation data collection being conducted as part of the 

third-grade data collection. Table A-1 lists the Federal agency consultants for the ECLS-K and ECLS-K:2011 

and Table A-2 lists other organization consultants for the ECLS-K.

In preparation for the ECLS-K:2011 collections, the data collection contractor assembled expert panels 

(Technical Review Panel (TRP) and Content Review Panels (CRP)) to review and comment on issues related 

to the development of the study and survey instruments. The members of the panels included experts in 

research, policy making, and practice in the fields of early childhood education and development, elementary 

education, health, research methodology, special populations, and assessment.

There have been two meetings of the TRP panels. The first was a 2-day meeting held in November 2008. The 

meeting focused on major design and content issues, such as study periodicity, the benefits of including an 

assessment of science in kindergarten, the assessment of executive functioning, and the content of a Spanish 

language assessment for native Spanish speakers who are English language learners. The TRP members also 

provided suggestions for specific questionnaire items to be included in the instruments in the full-scale 

national data collection. Table A-3 lists the ECLS-K:2011 TRP members present at the first meeting.

The second TRP meeting was a 2-day meeting held in March 2011. The meeting focused on content for the 

first- and second-grade non-assessment instruments, including suggestions for specific questionnaire items to 

be included in the instruments in the second-grade data collection. Table A-4 lists the ECLS-K:2011 TRP 

members present at the second meeting.
A-24

Table A-1. Federal agency consultants for ECLS-K and ECLS-K:2011

Diane Schilder1

Government Accounting Office

Cindy Prince,1 Emily Wurtz1

National Education Goals Panel

Andy Hartman1

National Institute for Literacy

Mary Queitzsch,1 Larry Suter1

National Science Foundation

Michael Ruffner,1 Bayla White,1

Brian Harris-Kojetin1

Office of Management and the Budget

John Endahl,1 Jeff Wilde,1 Joanne Guthrie,

Victor Oliviera1

U.S. Department of Agriculture

Don Hernandez1

U.S. Department of Commerce

Bureau of the Census

Marriage and Family Statistics

Tim D’Emillio

U.S. Department of Education, OELA

Naomi Karp,1 Dave Malouf,1 Ivor Pritchard,1

Marsha Silverberg1

U.S. Department of Education, IES

Pia Divine,1 Esther Kresh,1 Ivelisse Martinez-Beck, Ann 

Rivera

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Administration for Children, Youth, and Families

Gerry Hendershot,1 John Kiley,1 Michael Kogan, 1 Mitchell 

Loeb, Patricia Pastor

U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services

NCHS

Howard Hoffman

National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication 

Disorders

NICHD, U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services

Mary Frances Cotch

National Eye Institute

NICHD, U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services

Christa Themann, William Murphy

National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health

Centers for Disease Control

Michael Planty, Jenna Truman

Bureau of Justice Statistics

U.S. Department of Justice

Tom Bradshaw,1 Doug Herbert1

National Endowment for the Arts

Jeffrey Thomas1

National Endowment for the Humanities

Patricia McKee

U.S. Department of Education

OESE Compensatory Education Programs

Cathie L. Martin1

U.S. Department of Education, OIE

Scott Brown,1 Louis Danielson,1 Glinda Hill,1

Lisa Holden-Pitt,1 Kristen Lauer,1

Marlene Simon-Burroughs,1 Larry Wexler

U.S. Department of Education, OSEP

Jon Jacobson

U.S. Department of Education, NCEE

Lisa A. Gorove1

U.S. Department of Education

OUS, Budget Service, ESVA

Elois Scott1

U.S. Department of Education

OUS, PES, ESED

Richard Dean1

U.S. Department of Education

OVAE, Adult Literacy

Jacquelyn Buckley

U.S. Department of Education

IES, NCSER

Jeff Evans,1 Sarah Friedman,1 Christine Bachrach,1

Peggy McCardle1

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

NICHD, Center for Population Research

Martha Moorehouse,1 Anne Wolf1

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Office of Assistant Secretary for Planning & Evaluation, 

Children and Youth Policy

Katrina Baum1

Bureau of Justice Statistics

Department of Justice

Meredith A. Miceli

U.S. Department of Education

Office of Special Education Programs

1 Consultant for the ECLS-K only. Affiliation listed is the affiliation at the time input on the study was provided.
A-25

Table A-2. Other organization consultants for ECLS-K and ECLS-K:20111

Lynson Bobo

Project Associate

Resource Center on Educational Equity

Council of Chief State School Officers

Susan Bredekamp, Barbara Willer

National Association for the Education of Young Children 

Jane Clarenbach

National Association for Gifted Children

Mary Jo Lynch

American Library Association

Office of Research and Statistics

Keith W. Mielkek

Children’s Television Workshop

June Million, Sally McConnell, Louanne Wheeler

National Association of Elementary School Principals

Evelyn Moore, Erica Tollett

National Black Child Development Institute

Thomas Schultz

Director, Center for Education Services for Young Learners

National Association of State Boards of Education

Larry Suter

Independent Education Consultant, Formerly of NSF and 

NCES

1 Affiliation listed is the affiliation at the time input on the study was provided.

NOTE: Italicized text used for consultation that occurred for the ECLS-K:2011. All other consultations occurred for the ECLS-K. 

Table A-3. ECLS-K:2011 First TRP meeting attendee list (November 2008)1

Karl Alexander

Department of Sociology

Johns Hopkins University

Jim Bauman

Center for Applied Linguistics

Washington, DC

Maureen Black

Growth and Nutrition Department

University of Maryland Medical Center

Joanne Carlisle

School of Education

University of Michigan

Janet Fischel

State University of New York at Stony Brook & University 

Medical Center

Fred Morrison

Department of Psychology

University of Michigan

Charlotte Patterson

Department of Psychology

University of Virginia

Robert Pianta

The Center for Advanced Teaching and Learning

University of Virginia

Kit Viator

Massachusetts Department of Education

1 Affiliation listed is the affiliation at the time input on the study was provided.

Table A-4. ECLS-K:2011 Second TRP meeting attendee list (March 2011)1

Karl Alexander

Department of Sociology

Johns Hopkins University

Jim Bauman

Center for Applied Linguistics

Washington, DC

Joanne Carlisle

School of Education

University of Michigan

Robert Crosnoe

Department of Sociology

University of Texas at Austin

David Dickinson

Department of Teaching and Learning

Vanderbilt University

Rolf Grafwallner

Maryland Public Schools

Greg Roberts

The Meadows Center for Preventing Educational Risk

University of Texas at Austin

Deborah Stipek

School of Education

Stanford University

1 Affiliation listed is the affiliation at the time input on the study was provided.
A-26

To date, ten meetings of the CRP panels have been held: reading (May 2009), mathematics (May 2009), 

science (May 2009), English language learners (August 2009), executive function (November 2009; March 

2011, December 2012), socioemotional development (March 2011; October 2012), and teacher practices 

(March 2011). For each of these specific content areas, panel members provided critical review of the 

instruments for inclusion in the national data collections. The meetings focused on the appropriateness and 

adequacy of specific instruments by considering features such as domain coverage, age appropriateness, and 

technical quality. Table A-5 lists the ECLS-K:2011 CRP members.

Table A-5. ECLS-K:2011 CRP member list, by panel1

Reading Panel

Susan Conrad

Independent consultant, assessment development

Gloria Johnston

Education National University

Alba Ortiz

University of Texas at Austin

Barbara Wasik

Temple University

Mathematics Panel

Doug Clements

State University of New York, Buffalo

Donna Compano

Independent consultant, assessment development, math 

facilitator, elementary teacher

Lizanne DeStefano

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Leah Parker

Journeys Academy, Gifted Education Specialist

Science Panel

Christie Bean

JJ Ciavarra Elementary School

Kathy DiRanna

University of California - Irvine

Angela Eckhoff

Clemson University

Christine Y. O’Sullivan

Science Consultant

Michael Padilla

Clemson University

1 Affiliation listed is the affiliation at the time input on the study was provided.

Table A-5. ECLS-K:2011 CRP member list, by panel1 (continued)

English Language Learners Panel

Jamal Abedi

University of California at Davis

Catherine Crowley

Teachers College

Eugene E. García

Arizona State University

Vera Gutierrez-Clellen

San Diego State University

Executive Function Panel

Clancy Blair

New York University

Adele Diamond (March 2011 meeting only)

University of British Columbia

Lisa Jacobson (December 2012 meeting only)

Kennedy Krieger Institute

Megan McClelland

Oregon State University

Philip Zelazo

University of Minnesota
A-27

Socioemotional Development Panel

Pamela Cole (March 2011 meeting only)

The Pennsylvania State University

Rick Fabes

Arizona State University

Karen Bierman (October 2012 meeting only)

The Pennsylvania State University

Allan Wigfield (October 2012 meeting only)

University of Maryland

Ross Thompson (March 2011 meeting only)

University of California, Davis

Carlos Valiente (March 2011 meeting only)

Arizona State University

Dorothy Espelage (October 2012 meeting only)

University of Illinois

Teacher Practices Panel

Stephanie Al Otaiba

Florida State University

Hilda Borko

Stanford University

Carol Connor

Florida State University

Barbara Wasik

University of North Carolina

1 Affiliation listed is the affiliation at the time input on the study was provided.

A.9 Provision of Payments or Gifts to Respondents

Obtaining high response rates is critical for all longitudinal studies. At the start of a longitudinal data 

collection, it is essential to establish the good will of respondents and to demonstrate that we value their 

participation in the study. Good will can be established by using well-designed respondent materials that 

inform respondents about the goals of the study and their role in it, the field staff establishing a rapport with 

the respondents, professionalism among the field staff, and a small token incentive. The incentive plan for the 

ECLS-K:2011 is similar to the approach approved by OMB for use in ECLS-K and in the kindergarten, firstgrade, and second-grade collections of the ECLS-K:2011, though we are proposing a few changes, including 

adding small tokens of appreciation for parents and children and a somewhat higher incentive for teachers 

than has been used in the prior rounds of the ECLS-K:2011. The plan is designed to help respondents to 

recognize the merits of the study and thereby encourage high response rates. 

As described below, we propose to provide monetary incentives to school staff, as has been done in prior 

rounds of data collection for the ECLS-K:2011. Parents and children will not receive any significant incentive, 

monetary or otherwise. As in the past, children will be given ECLS-K:2011 pencils with the sun logo that they 

use for the math portion of the assessment. This round, we are proposing to also give children a small token 

of appreciation such as a carabineer, lanyard, or refrigerator magnet with the sun logo. The token of 

appreciation will be mailed to the child’s home, along with the letter for parents about the upcoming data 

collection. A set of ECLS-K:2011 post-it notes with the sun logo (included in Appendix H) will also be sent 

with the parent letter. The study is now entering its fourth year, and both parents and children have been 

asked to participate several times, some as many as six times. These tokens of appreciation are being sent as a 

small gesture in an effort to maintain enthusiasm for and a positive attitude about the study. Though the 

token of appreciation is for children, we anticipate that parents will react positively to seeing their children 

receive something from the study. The parent response rates have consistently been lower than desired 
A-28

(between 67 percent and about 75 percent), so another goal of providing these small tokens of appreciation is 

to maintain the participation of parents who have participated consistently in the past and encourage the 

participation of those who have not. 

A.9.1 School Incentive

High levels of school participation are integral to the success of the study. Without a school’s cooperation, 

there can be no school, teacher, or child data collection activity at that facility. NCES recognizes that 

administrators will assess the study’s burden level before agreeing to participate. To offset the perceived 

burden, NCES intends to continue its use of strategies that have worked successfully in the past for the 

ECLS-K:2011, the ECLS-K, and other major NCES studies (High School and Beyond, the National 

Education Longitudinal Study of 1988, and the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002). It is important to 

provide schools with an incentive because the study asks a lot of them, including allowing field staff to be in 

their schools for up to 3 days, providing a contact person and space for the children to be assessed, removing 

children from their classes while they are assessed, and obtaining information about the school, the teachers, 

and the children. Given the many demands and outside pressures that schools face, it is essential that they see 

that we understand the burden we are placing on them and that we value their participation. As was done for 

the other ECLS-K:2011 data collections, we propose to remunerate schools $200 per school. An honorarium 

check in the amount of $200 will be mailed to each school at the end of the spring third-grade data collection 

along with a thank you note thanking the school for its participation.9

A.9.2 School Administrator

To build response rates for the school administrator questionnaire, we propose to remunerate school 

administrators. In the ECLS-K, when no incentive was provided for administrators until the third-grade 

round of data collection, the field period had to be extended (for both kindergarten and first grade) to obtain

response rates for the school administrator questionnaire that were closer to the desired rate of 85 percent or 

higher. Providing school administrators with an incentive will reduce the potential for needing to extend the 

field period and help avoid delays in data delivery. We will offer school administrators a $25 incentive in the 

spring third-grade collection, the same amount that was given to school administrators during the spring 

kindergarten, first-, and second-grade rounds of the ECLS-K:2011; the incentive will be attached to the 

questionnaire given to the school administrator to complete. In the spring first-grade round of the ECLSK:2011, we offered school administrators a $25 incentive and a completion rate of 89 percent was achieved 

for the school administrator questionnaire.10

 

9 Remuneration will not be provided to schools into which study children have transferred because most of those schools have only one study 

child. Because only one child will be assessed in most of these transfer schools, the burden on the school is minimal. For example, fewer field 

staff will visit the school, a smaller assessment space can be used, and likely only one classroom and teacher will be disrupted. School 

administrators, teachers, and (if applicable) special education teachers will still be remunerated for the completion of the hard-copy 

questionnaires.

10Because final reconciliation of the spring-second grade data collection has not yet been completed, the response rate for the spring-first grade 

round has been provided here.
A-29

A.9.3 Teachers

In the base-year, first-, and second-grade collections of the ECLS-K:2011, teachers received $7 per child-level 

questionnaire because they were asked to provide a significant amount of information about each study child 

based on their observations of these students. A check for the incentive was attached to the package of 

instruments the teacher received each fall and spring. For the spring third-grade collection of the ECLSK:2011, we propose changing to the incentive structure to the model that was used in later rounds of the 

ECLS-K. Classroom and special education teachers will still be offered $7 per child-level questionnaire, but 

an additional $20 associated with the teacher-/classroom-level questionnaires will also be provided. 

A change in incentive structure was also made in the ECLS-K in later-round data collections. Teachers 

participating in the ECLS-K received $5 per sampled child in their classrooms during the kindergarten data 

collection rounds. Complaints about this amount to field staff prompted an incentive increase to $7 per child 

for third grade. In third grade, teachers completed child-level questionnaires for 63 percent of the study 

children. This low response rate prompted a second revision to the teacher incentive plan for the fifth-grade 

data collection, in which an additional $20 was given to teachers with the packet of questionnaires, in addition 

to the $7 per completed child-level questionnaire. Teachers responded positively to this method, as evidenced 

by their completing questionnaires on time, resulting in high response rates. In fifth grade, teachers completed 

child-level questionnaires for 93 percent of the study children.

The ECLS-K:2011 is having experiences similar to those that prompted changes to the teacher incentive plan 

in the ECLS-K, particularly in the spring second-grade round when the number of significant complaints 

from our respondents was higher than in the past. Field staff collecting hard-copy questionnaires from school 

staff have reported strong dissatisfaction among teachers, explaining that these teachers feel that the current 

incentive amount is inadequate, even “insulting” in the words of one teacher, given what is asked of the 

teachers. Another teacher stated, “The pay was not worth the time spent.” Project field staff were told by a 

different teacher, “The check is a nice perk but not much of an incentive for the staff. Dropping out of the 

study is being considered by some teachers unless the needed information can be shortened or the 

compensation increased.” Other teachers reported that after completing the child-level questionnaires, they 

did not then want to complete a questionnaire on their own background without additional remuneration. 

While the addition of a $20 incentive for the teacher-level questionnaire did not occur until the fifth-grade 

data collection in the ECLS-K, we propose instituting it for the third-grade round of the ECLS-K:2011 for 

several reasons. NCES strives to achieve an 85 percent response rate and it would be better to change the 

incentive structure before the rates get as low as they did in the ECLS-K third-grade data collection. Teachers 

provide critical information on the child’s experience in the classroom. Without the teachers’ cooperation, our 

understanding of the child’s school experience is incomplete. Also, the issue of mandatory ESEA testing will 

be a concern to teachers as the children move to third grade in the ECLS-K:2011. The demands of required 

testing crowd out non-instructional time for voluntary studies like ECLS-K:2011, so teachers may be less 
A-30

likely to cooperate. This was not a concern in the ECLS-K because there was no mandatory testing at the 

national level in the spring of 2002. We expect that given the current economic state of the country and 

increasing demands on teachers as the cohort moves to the third grade, the proposed honorarium will be an 

even stronger incentive for elementary school teachers now than it was in the ECLS-K. Lastly, the dispersion 

of the sample and the effect that has on average remuneration was not considered thoroughly before the 

third-ground of the ECLS-K. In the earlier rounds of data collection, teachers typically teach clusters of 

sampled children, so their total incentive (with $7 per child-level questionnaire) is actually fairly robust. In 

addition, in kindergarten, there were two rounds of data collection, so teachers received two incentive 

payments during the year. In the later grades, when the children become more dispersed across classrooms 

and schools, the teacher incentive is lower for the average teacher, with many teachers receiving only $7 

because there is only one study child in the school.

A recent article updates previous reviews of research on the use of survey incentives (Singer and Ye 2013). 

The authors systematically reviewed articles appearing since 2002 in major journals, supplemented by searches 

of the Proceedings of the American Statistical Association’s Section on Survey Methodology. Among the 

conclusions they draw are that “Incentives increase response rates to surveys in all modes, including the Web, 

and in cross-sectional and panel studies” and “Monetary incentives increase response rates more than gifts, 

and prepaid incentives increase them more than promised incentives....” Given the effectiveness of the 

change in the teacher incentive plan in our past experience with the ECLS-K, and the fact that keeping the 

current incentive structure actually represents a decrease in incentive for most teachers, we propose using the 

ECLS-K teacher incentive plan for third-grade teachers in the ECLS-K:2011 to improve data quality and 

coverage. 

Teachers will be asked to complete self-administered questionnaires about their background, curriculum, 

instructional practices, and their views about teaching and their school environment (TQA and TQS). We 

expect the completion of these two questionnaires to take about 30 minutes total for both. In addition, they 

will be asked to complete a 20-minute child-level questionnaire (TQC) for each child in their classroom who 

participates in the study. Based on what occurred in the ECLS-K, we expect that general classroom teachers 

will have on average two sampled children in their third-grade classrooms, resulting in a total remuneration of 

$34. The estimate for special education teachers is the same. A check for the incentive will be attached to the 

package of instruments each teacher receives.

In light of our experience with the ECLS-K and other school-based longitudinal studies with high 

institutional and respondent burden, NCES believes that teacher remuneration is a necessary component of a 

successful ECLS-K:2011 data collection. 
A-31

A.9.4 School Coordinators

School coordinators act as the study liaison between study staff and their school and, as such, they play a very 

important role in the ECLS-K:2011.11 They communicate necessary information to parents, notify teachers

and encourage their participation, arrange the assessment logistics (e.g., space to conduct the assessments), 

and collect hard-copy teacher and school administrator questionnaires. For this reason, school coordinators 

will be offered a $25 incentive for providing assistance to the study in the spring third-grade data collection.12

The $25 checks will be attached to the packets mailed to the coordinators at the start of data collection. The 

study offered the same incentive to the school coordinators during the ECLS-K:2011 kindergarten, first-, and 

second-grade data collections.

A.10 Assurance of Confidentiality

The ECLS-K:2011 plan for protecting confidentiality of the project participants conforms with the following 

federal regulations and policies: the Privacy Act of 1974 (5 U.S.C. 552a), Privacy Act Regulations (34 CFR 

Part 5b), the Education Sciences Reform Act of 2002 (20 U.S. Code Section 9573), the Computer Security 

Act of 1987, the NCES Restricted-Use Data Procedures Manual, and the NCES Standards and Policies.

All adult respondents who are participating in research under this clearance are informed that the information 

they provide will be protected from disclosure except as required by law (20 U.S. Code Section 9573) and that 

their participation is voluntary. All adult respondents receive an introductory letter that explains NCES’s and 

the contractor’s adherence to policies on disclosure.13 Also, this information appears on the cover of each of 

the study self-administered questionnaires. This information was provided to parents as the guardians for 

their children when their cooperation was sought during the base year of the study.

Since early spring 2010 (when preparations for the kindergarten data collections began), information about 

the protection of data from disclosure has been conveyed to state, district, and other school officials at the 

time their cooperation for the study was sought. As sampled children move to new schools, this information 

will be provided to the states and districts in which those schools are located, if necessary (i.e., if there are no 

participating schools in those states and districts already). New schools in the study will receive the letter 

developed for schools to which sampled children transfer that can be found in Appendix H of this clearance 

request, as well as the study brochure that was approved in May 2010 (see Appendix H of that package).

Respondent letters to parents summarize the data protection assurances; namely, that data will be combined 

to produce statistical reports, that no data will be published that link the respondent to his/her responses; that 

 

11The school coordinator will often be the same school staff member from a previous round of data collection. If that person is not available, then 

a new staff member will be identified by the school administrator to act as a liaison to the study. 

12As with the $200 school incentive, remuneration will not be provided to school coordinators in schools into which study children have 

transferred since kindergarten if those schools are not attended by at least four ECLS-K:2011 study children.

13Spring third-grade recruitment materials were approved in a previous clearance package – OMB# 1850-0750 v.12.
A-32

participation is voluntary; and that there is federal statute that protects the data from disclosure except as 

required by law (20 U.S. Code Section 9573).

All contractor staff members working on the ECLS-K:2011 project or having access to the data (including 

monitoring of interviews and assessments) are required to sign an NCES Affidavit of Nondisclosure and a 

Confidentiality Pledge. They also are required to complete mandatory training on data confidentiality and the 

safe handling of data. The contractor will keep the original notarized affidavits on file and submit PDF copies 

of all affidavits to NCES quarterly. In addition, contractor staff will complete background screening in 

compliance with ACS Directive (OM:5-101).

During the course of data collection, interviewers will be equipped with laptop computers, which store any 

necessary preloaded data, as well as the information collected on a given day during the data collection round. 

The interviewers will be instructed to keep the computers and any hard-copy case materials in a secure place 

in their homes when they are not being used. When the interviewer is in the field collecting interview or 

assessment data, he or she is instructed to keep all materials and the computer in his/her possession at all 

times. When driving a car to or from his/her appointments, the computer and all materials will be locked out 

of sight, so as not to provide an inviting opportunity for burglary. The interviewers will be instructed to 

transmit the electronic data for a case to a central database on the same day the case is completed. Data 

transmitted electronically will be encrypted during transmission.

The laptop configuration is designed with security and confidentiality considerations in mind. In order to 

access any of the applications, the interviewer must enter a project-specific password and an interviewer

identification code, both of which are checked against encrypted versions of the same data; if the password or 

interviewer identification code is entered incorrectly repeatedly, the interviewer is “locked out” of the 

application. All data files will be encrypted on the computer hard disk.

In the event of a hardware failure in the field, the home office will swap the interviewer’s laptop for a new 

one. The contractor will maintain a supply of “hot spares,” i.e., laptop computers loaded with all necessary 

ECLS-K:2011 software, which require only the specific interviewer’s identification code and assignment 

before being sent out.

All mailing of respondent materials, laptops, and hard-copy case materials used by assessors to manage their 

workload will be done using Federal Express, which has a sophisticated tracking system designed to locate 

any misdirected packages. All packages will require the recipient’s signature for delivery. To the extent 

practical, the study name and logo will not be included on hard copy materials used by field staff to record 

school or respondent information. In the event of a loss of hard copy materials, this procedure would make it 

more difficult for someone who finds the materials to associate a school or respondent with the study. In 

addition, beginning in the third-grade data collection round, a secure message system will be used to share 
A-33

materials containing sensitive information (e.g., children’s names) between the field staff and school staff. In 

previous rounds of the ECLS-K:2011 the list of participating children was sent separately from all other study 

materials via Federal Express and contained no study identifying information. With the secure message 

system, this list of participating children will be shared electronically, rather than in hard copy. The system 

does not allow for the list to be printed or forwarded to other staff, enhancing the confidentiality of the 

materials.

Finally, all computer assisted interviewing (CAI) applications will have an audit trail of the case data on the 

hard disk, so that if the main data files are corrupted, the data can be reconstructed from the audit trails.

After data collection, all personally identifiable information will be stored on a secure server and password 

protected with access limited to authorized project staff. Personally identifiable data will also be protected 

through the coding of responses so that no one individual respondent can be identified (specifically or by 

deduction) through reported variables in the public access data files. NCES will monitor the conduct of the 

contractor to ensure that the confidentiality of the data is not breached.

Exhibit A-2. Confidentiality Pledge

EMPLOYEE OR CONTRACTOR’S ASSURANCE OF CONFIDENTIALITY OF SURVEY DATA 

Statement of Policy

{Contractor} is firmly committed to the principle that the confidentiality of individual data obtained through {Contractor} surveys must 

be protected. This principle holds whether or not any specific guarantee of confidentiality was given at time of interview (or self-response), or 

whether or not there are specific contractual obligations to the client. When guarantees have been given or contractual obligations regarding 

confidentiality have been entered into, they may impose additional requirements which are to be adhered to strictly. 

Procedures for Maintaining Confidentiality

1. All {Contractor} employees and field workers shall sign this assurance of confidentiality. This assurance may be superseded by 

another assurance for a particular project. 

2. Field workers shall keep completely confidential the names of respondents, all information or opinions collected in the course of 

interviews, and any information about respondents learned incidentally during field work. Field workers shall exercise reasonable 

caution to prevent access by others to survey data in their possession. 

3. Unless specifically instructed otherwise for a particular project, an employee or field worker, upon encountering a respondent or 

information pertaining to a respondent that s/he knows personally, shall immediately terminate the activity and contact her/his 

supervisor for instructions. 

4. Survey data containing personal identifiers in {Contractor} offices shall be kept in a locked container or a locked room when not 

being used each working day in routine survey activities. Reasonable caution shall be exercised in limiting access to survey data to 

only those persons who are working on the specific project and who have been instructed in the applicable confidentiality 

requirements for that project. 

Where survey data have been determined to be particularly sensitive by the Corporate Officer in charge of the project or the 

President of {Contractor}, such survey data shall be kept in locked containers or in a locked room except when actually being

used and attended by a staff member who has signed this pledge. 

5. Ordinarily, serial numbers shall be assigned to respondents prior to creating a machine-processible record and identifiers such as 

name, address, and Social Security number shall not, ordinarily, be a part of the machine record. When identifiers are part of the 

machine data record, {Contractor’s Manager of Data Processing} shall be responsible for determining adequate confidentiality 

measures in consultation with the project director. When a separate file is set up containing identifiers or linkage information 

which could be used to identify data records, this separate file shall be kept locked up when not actually being used each day in 

routine survey activities. 

6. When records with identifiers are to be transmitted to another party, such as for keypunching or key taping, the other party shall 

be informed of these procedures and shall sign an Assurance of Confidentiality form. 
A-34

7. Each project director shall be responsible for ensuring that all personnel and contractors involved in handling survey data on a 

project are instructed in these procedures throughout the period of survey performance. When there are specific contractual 

obligations to the client regarding confidentiality, the project director shall develop additional procedures to comply with these 

obligations and shall instruct field staff, clerical staff, consultants, and any other persons who work on the project in these 

additional procedures. At the end of the period of survey performance, the project director shall arrange for proper storage or 

disposition of survey data including any particular contractual requirements for storage or disposition. When required to turn over 

survey data to our clients, we must provide proper safeguards to ensure confidentiality up to the time of delivery. 

8. Project directors shall ensure that survey practices adhere to the provisions of the U.S. Privacy Act of 1974, and any additional 

relevant laws that are specified in the contract, with regard to surveys of individuals for the Federal Government. Project directors 

must ensure that procedures are established in each survey to inform each respondent of the authority for the survey, the purpose 

and use of the survey, the voluntary nature of the survey (where applicable), and the effects on the respondents, if any, of not 

responding. 

PLEDGE

I hereby certify that I have carefully read and will cooperate fully with the above procedures. I will keep completely confidential all information arising from 

surveys concerning individual respondents to which I gain access. I will not discuss, disclose, disseminate, or provide access to survey data and identifiers except as 

authorized by {Contractor}. In addition, I will comply with any additional procedures established by {Contractor} for a particular contract. I will devote my best 

efforts to ensure that there is compliance with the required procedures by personnel whom I supervise. I understand that violation of this pledge is sufficient 

grounds for disciplinary action, including dismissal. I also understand that violation of the privacy rights of individuals through such unauthorized discussion, 

disclosure, dissemination, or access may make me subject to criminal or civil penalties. I give my personal pledge that I shall abide by this assurance of 

confidentiality. 

_______________________________

Signature

NCES understands the legal and ethical need to protect the privacy of the ECLS-K:2011 survey respondents 

and, with the contractor, has extensive experience in developing data files for release that meet the 

Government’s requirements to protect individually identifiable data from disclosure. The contractor will 

conduct a thorough disclosure analysis of the ECLS-K:2011 data when preparing the data files for 

researchers’ use. This analysis will ensure that NCES has fully complied with the confidentiality provisions 

contained in 20 U.S. Code, Section 9573. To protect the privacy of respondents as required by 20 U.S. Code, 

Section 9573, respondents with high disclosure risk will be identified, and a variety of masking strategies will 

be used to ensure that individuals may not be identified from the data files. These masking strategies include:

 Swapping data on both the public- and restricted-use files;

 Omitting key identification variables such as name, address, telephone number, and school name and 

address from both the public- and restricted-use files (though the restricted-use file will include NCES 

school ID that can be linked to other NCES databases to identify a school);

 Omitting key geographic identification variables such as state or ZIP Code from the public-use file;

 Collapsing categories or developing categories for continuous variables to retain information for 

analytic purposes while preserving confidentiality in public-use files; and

 “Topcoding” and “bottomcoding”14 continuous variables in public-use files.

A.11 Sensitive Questions

The ECLS-K:2011 is a voluntary study, and no persons are required to respond to the interviews and 

questionnaires or to participate in the assessments. In addition, respondents may decline to answer any 

question they are asked. This voluntary aspect of the survey is clearly stated in the advance letter mailed to 

 

14Topcoding and bottomcoding refer to the process of recoding outlier values to some acceptable end value. For instance, everyone with a 

personal income higher than $200,000 may be recoded to $200,001 or more to eliminate the outliers.
A-35

adult respondents, the study brochure,15 and the instructions of hard-copy questionnaires, and it is stressed in 

interviewer training to ensure that interviewers are both communicating this to participants and following 

these guidelines. Additionally, assessors and health technicians are trained that children may refuse to 

participate at the time they are visited for an assessment and staff are to respect the children’s wishes. Also, 

prior to the start of the child questionnaire, children are instructed that if they wish to skip a particular 

question, they should touch the “Next” button without choosing a response.

The following describes the general nature of the national data collection instruments that will be used during 

the spring third-grade data collection, as well as topics that may be sensitive for some respondents.

School Administrator Questionnaires. The items in the School Administrator Questionnaire are not of a 

sensitive nature and should not pose sensitivity concerns to respondents.

Teacher Questionnaires. The information collected in the child-level questionnaires could be regarded as 

sensitive, because the teacher is asked to provide information about children’s social skills (including ability to 

exercise self-control, interact with others, resolve conflict, and participate in group activities); problem 

behaviors (e.g., fighting, arguing, anger, depression, low self-esteem, impulsiveness); learning dispositions 

(e.g., curiosity, self-direction, inventiveness); and experiences with peer victimization, both as a victim and as 

the aggressor. A study of bullying, a construct closely related to peer victimization, by the National Institute 

for Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) found that 16 percent of middle school students 

reported being bullied (Nansel et al., 2001). Fewer studies have been done with younger children, but those 

that have been published suggest that bullying is experienced by many children and is related to negative 

outcomes. Glew et al.’s (2005) study of third through fifth graders found that 22 percent of children were 

classified as victims, bullies, or both. Victims, and children who were both bullies and victims, had lower 

achievement scores and were more likely to feel like they did not belong at school compared to bystanders 

(Glew et al. 2005). Kochenderfer and Ladd (1996) found a relation between victimization and school 

adjustment outcomes, with victimization related to children’s loneliness and desire to avoid school. Given 

these findings and the current White House anti-bullying initiative, having the ECLS-K:2011 collect 

information about peer victimization, in this national sample of elementary school children would be useful. 

Within the set of questions about the teacher’s views on school readiness, school climate, and school 

environment, there are some questions that could be deemed sensitive by some teachers. Teachers may feel 

that rating statements regarding their satisfaction with their work (e.g., I really enjoy my present teaching job) 

are sensitive in nature. These items are included because prior research (e.g., Perrachione, Rosser, & Peterson, 

2008; Luekens, Lyter, & Fox, 2004; Rhodes, Nevill, & Allen, 2004) indicates that teacher satisfaction may be 

associated with relevant constructs such as staff retention and stability. Prior to their participation, teachers 

 

15The study brochure was approved in a previous OMB clearance package (OMB No. 1850-0750 v. 8).
A-36

will be informed and assured that their information will be protected from disclosure except as required by 

law and that their responses will not be shared with their employers or the parents of their students. Also, 

teachers and school coordinators will be given an envelope in which they can place their completed 

questionnaire and seal it before returning their questionnaire to the school coordinator. 

Direct Cognitive Assessments. The direct cognitive assessments are essential in determining children’s 

performance levels as they progress through school. Because schools often use different standards in their 

own assessments of children and a uniform set of assessment instruments and procedures is needed for the 

ECLS-K:2011, school-developed assessments cannot be used in the ECLS-K:2011. The items to be included 

in the ECLS-K:2011 reading, math, and science assessments undergo a sensitivity review and are not 

themselves sensitive in nature. Similarly, the executive function assessment is not sensitive in nature. 

However, direct assessments of children do raise certain concerns about the assessment procedures to be 

used. Of primary concern is the length of the assessments. The cognitive assessments, while untimed, are 

designed to be administered on average within a 60-minute time period. The child questionnaire is designed 

to be administered in 10 minutes and measurement of height and weight adds another 5 minutes to the total 

child assessment time. NCES has developed instruments appropriate to the ages of the participating children, 

and every effort will be made to staff the study with field assessors who have prior experience in working with 

children. Issues specific to working with children also figure prominently in assessor training so that the field 

staff can respond appropriately to children who may become upset or frustrated by the assessment.

Child Questionnaire (CQ). Some of the questions contained in the child questionnaire may be deemed 

sensitive, particularly those related to peer victimization (e.g., During this school year, how often have other 

students pushed, shoved, slapped, hit, or kicked you?) and social distress (e.g., I worry that other kids don’t 

like me.) These types of items were added to the child questionnaire at the recommendation of the October 

2012 CRP. CRP members advised that self-reports of children’s social distress are more important to capture 

in the ECLS-K:2011 than self-reported measures of children’s behavior problems (which were used in the 

ECLS-K) for a variety of reasons, including differences in children’s ability to provide valid self-reports on 

these two topics. The CRP recommended assessment of social distress globally, with items measuring fear of 

negative evaluation (social anxiety), and perception of victimization, three constructs that tend to correlate 

with one another. The recommended scales were developed for use with children in similar age ranges as the 

ECLS-K:2011 sampled children. 

In response to this recommendation, several items were added to the CQ. Items measuring fear of negative 

evaluation were recommended from a longer social anxiety scale; in one study, children reporting a high level 

of fear of negative evaluation using items from this scale self-reported lower perceived social acceptance and 

lower global self-worth (La Greca and Stone 1993). The peer victimization items that were added mirror the 

items that are currently being fielded in the second-grade parent and teacher instruments (and are included in 

the third-grade versions), thus allowing researchers to analyze the relationship between children’s own report 
A-37

of peer victimization and their experiences as reported by parents and teachers. Members of the CRP 

recommended this approach and suggested the items, which are adapted from a scale developed for this age 

group (Espelage and Holt 2001). Items adapted from existing scales measuring children’s prosocial behavior 

(Zimmer-Gembeck, Geiger, and Crick 2005; Crick and Grotpeter 1995) and satisfaction with friends and 

family (NIH Toolbox for the Assessment of Neurological and Behavioral Function 2012) were added in 

response to CRP concerns that positive affect and orientation were not tapped by the other items proposed 

for the CQ, noting a need to balance more negatively-toned items with more positive ones in a child selfreport. As with other respondents, children will be told that they can skip any question(s) they do not wish to 

answer as part of the instructions for completing the questionnaire. 

Parent Interviews. Several topics that will be addressed in the spring third-grade parent interview could be 

sensitive in nature for some respondents. Questions about family income, child-rearing and disciplinary 

practices, children’s disabilities, children’s receipt of tutoring, children’s peer victimization, parents’ and 

children’s country of origin, and contact with a child’s nonresidential parent will be included in the parent 

interview. All of these questions have been asked in earlier versions of the ECLS-K:2011 and will provide 

another time point in the study for information on these topics.

As mentioned above, few studies of peer victimization have been done with children of the age of the ECLSK:2011 sample, but those that have been conducted suggest that being the source of or subject to peer 

victimization is not uncommon during childhood and is related to negative outcomes. Asking both parents 

and teachers about students experiences with peer victimization would allow examination of this component 

of bullying in two different contexts. Asking about student experiences with peer victimization in the springthird grade parent interview will also provide a second time point for questions about this topic, since these 

same questions were asked in the spring-second grade parent interview.

Questions on most of these topics were included in the ECLS-K and very few parents objected to them. 

Results from the ECLS-K showed that there were very low levels of missing data in the parent interviews for 

all items, including the ones mentioned here that are planned to be included in the ECLS-K:2011. For 

example, in the spring kindergarten round of the ECLS-K, response rates for sensitive items such as family 

income and marital satisfaction were in the mid to high 90’s (94.4 percent and 99.7 percent, respectively). 

Prior research indicates that the topics in the parent interview are correlated with children’s achievement and 

help to predict children’s preparedness for and success in school. Collecting data on these topics will allow

researchers to go beyond descriptive analyses of variation in children’s performance by basic background 

characteristics such as race/ethnicity and sex. Researchers will be able to test hypotheses about how a wide 

range of family characteristics relate to early success in school. Therefore, it is important to include questions 

on the sensitive topics listed above in the parent interviews. Like other study participants, parents will be told 

that they can refuse to answer any question they wish.
A-38

Additionally, because it is imperative that respondents can be found at a later date for follow-up collections in 

a longitudinal study, the ECLS-K:2011 interview protocol requests locating information from parents. The 

locating information includes name, address, telephone number, email address, and contact information for 

an individual who would always know the whereabouts of the respondent. Such information may appear 

sensitive to respondents who may be leery about providing contact information for people they know; again, 

they will have the option to refuse to answer these questions.

A.12 Estimated Response Burden

Table A-6 outlines the estimated respondent burden for data collection activities for which this submission is 

requesting approval (the national spring third-grade data collection, recruitment for the spring fourth-grade 

data collection, and tracking for the spring fifth-grade data collection). Included in these estimates, where 

appropriate, is the time that a respondent would need to gather and compile the data and the clerical time 

needed to fill out the form.

The spring third-grade national data collection includes direct cognitive assessments and self-administered 

questionnaires with children, measurements of children’s height and weight, evaluations of children’s hearing, 

parent interviews, regular classroom teacher teacher-/classroom-level self-administered questionnaires, regular 

classroom teacher child-level self-administered questionnaires, special education teacher teacher-level selfadministered questionnaires, special education teacher child-level self-administered questionnaires, and school 

administrator self-administered questionnaires. 

Table A-6 also outlines respondent burden for recruitment for spring fourth-grade and tracking for spring 

fifth-grade. The processes and procedures for respondent tracking are primarily internal and involve little 

contact with respondents. The table below includes 5 minutes per parent respondent to read the birthday 

cards we send to children to keep in touch with them. Recruitment burden time includes the time necessary 

to read study materials sent to parents, teachers, and school administrators; time during which teachers would 

discuss the study with a data collection staff member; and time the school administrator will take discussing 

the study with a school recruiter attempting to secure the school’s participation.

The total number of respondents across all of the data collection activities listed in table A-6, i.e., school 

administrators, teachers, school coordinators, and parents, is estimated to be 56,773.16 Because the parent 

study participants are expected to be the same across rounds, it would not be accurate to calculate a total 

sample or total number of respondents as a simple sum of the sample sizes and respondents for each round. 

Instead, to calculate a total, table A-6 uses the maximum estimated sample size or number of respondents 

 

16Schools are asked to assign a staff member to help coordinate the assessment activities at the school; these school coordinators are counted in 

the total number of respondents and their burden hours are counted. However, school coordinators do not complete any study instruments as 

part of their role as coordinator. 
A-39

across all rounds. Specifically, the largest number of parents involved in the activities delineated in table A-6 is 

expected to be contacted during recruitment for the spring third-grade national data collection. This is the 

number used for parents in the calculation of total sample size and total number of respondents. Also, for the 

spring third-grade activities (recruitment, tracking, and data collection), the largest sample size and number of 

respondents across these activities is used for the school coordinator, school administrator, and regular 

classroom teacher. The estimated respondent burden across all these activities translates into a cost amount of 

$1,400,292 for 52,702 hours.17The time children will spend completing the Child Questionnaire and 

participating in the hearing evaluations has been included in the estimated burden, although the time children 

will spend completing the cognitive assessments has not been included in the estimated burden.

A.13 Estimates of Cost to Respondents

There are no costs to the respondents to participate beyond the time needed for school coordinators to act as 

a liaison with the school, for parents to answer the interview questions, for teachers and school administrators 

to complete the questionnaires, and for the children to participate in the assessments. No equipment, 

printing, or postage charges will be incurred by the participants.

A.14 Annualized Cost to the Federal Government

Tracking and recruitment activities for the third- and fourth-grade data collections are being carried out under

NCES contract ED-IES-12-C-0037 with Westat. The period of performance for this ECLS-K:2011 contract, 

which includes the sample tracking procedures through the spring fifth-grade data collection, and the spring 

third-grade and spring fourth-grade national data collections, runs from June 2012 through June 2017. The 

total cost to the Government for contractor and subcontractor costs for this contract is $27,037,526. This 

cost estimate includes sample tracking activities, a pilot test of the third- through fifth- grade direct child 

assessments, all data collection activities from spring-third through spring-fourth grade, design enhancements, 

and data file delivery and documentation. Table A-6 provides the study costs by year of the contract for the 

third- and fourth-grade data collections. This clearance is for third-grade data collection, recruitment for the 

fourth-grade, and tracking for 5th grade only, so the estimated cost for the activities covered by this clearance 

are approximately half of the contract total, at $13.6 million.

Table A-6. Study costs per year of the contract for the third- and fourth-grade data collections

Year Amount

2012 $152,645

2013 $1,703,307

2014 $11,656,689

2015 $12,425,111

2016 $984,531

2017 $115,243

Total $27,037,526

 

17An hourly rate of $26.57 was used to translate teacher response time into a dollar amount. This rate is based on the National Compensation 

Survey. See U.S. Department of Labor (2007). National Compensation Survey: Occupational Wages in the United States, May 2011.
A-4

0

Table A-7. Estimated respondent burden for the national spring third-grade data collection, previously cleared third-grade tracking and 

recruitment activities, previously cleared tracking for the spring fourth-grade data collection, recruitment for the spring fourth-grade 

data collection, and sample tracking for the spring fifth-grade data collection

Respondent type Sample n

Response rate/

selection rate

Number of 

respondents

Hours per 

instrument

Instruments per 

respondent

Number of 

responses Total hours

Spring Third-Grade National Data Collection

Spring Direct Assessment 13,398 .90 12,058 1.17 1 12,058 14,108

Spring Child Questionnaire 13,398 .90 12,058 0.16 1 12,058 1,929

Hearing Evaluation 3,548 .90 3,193 0.25 1 3,193 798

Spring Parent Interview 13,398 .90 12,058 0.58 1 12,058 6,994

Spring School Administrator 

Questionnaires (SAQ) 2,952 .90 2,657 1.00 1 2,657 2,657

Spring Teacher Questionnaire (TQA/TQS)1 6,200 .90 5,580 0.50 1 5,580 2,790

Spring Teacher Child-level 

Questionnaire (TQC) 6,200 .90 5,580 0.33 2 11,160 3,683

Spring Special Education Teacher 

Questionnaire (SPA) 900 .90 810 0.50 1 810 405

Spring Special Education Teacher 

Child-level Questionnaire (SPB) 900 .90 810 0.33 2 1,620 535

School Coordinator Assistance2 2,952 .90 2,657 0.20 NA 2,657 531

Tracking for Spring-Third Grade

Parent 13,534 100% 13,534 .084 1 13,534 1,137

School Coordinator 3,211 100% 3,211 1.00 1 3,211 3,211

Recruitment for Spring-Third Grade

Parent 13,534 100% 13,534 .25 1 13,534 3,384

Teacher 3,853 100% 3,853 .50 1 3,853 1,927

School Administrator 3,211 100% 3,211 1.00 1 3,211 3,211

Tracking for Spring Fourth-Grade

Parent 12,457 100% 12,457 .084 1 12,457 1,046

School Coordinator 3,314 100% 3,314 1.00 1 3,314 3,314

Recruitment for Spring Fourth-Grade

Parent 12,457 100% 12,457 .25 1 12,457 3,114

Teacher 7,954 100% 7,954 .50 1 7,954 3,977

School Administrator 3,314 100% 3,314 1.00 1 3,314 3,314

Tracking for Spring Fifth-Grade

Parent 11,406 100% 11,406 .084 1 11,406 958

School Coordinator 3,787 100% 3,787 1.00 1 3,787 3,787

Study Total - - 56,7733 - - 143,8254 52,7025
A-4

1

NA Not applicable

1 This burden estimate includes the curriculum-level questionnaire (TQS).

2 School coordinators are school staff members who help organize the logistics for the assessment visit. They do not complete a study instrument.

3 Total number of respondents represents the total number of respondents with no duplication on the number of listed instruments each respective respondent is asked to complete. Shaded numbers do 

not contribute to the calculation of the total. For the spring third-grade activities (recruitment, tracking, and data collection), the largest n across these activities is used for the school coordinator, 

school administrator, and regular classroom teacher. It is expected that the parent respondent will be the same at all rounds, so the largest n for parents (recruitment for spring third-grade) is used in 

the calculation of the total. One teacher typically completes TQA, TQS, and TQC; a separate teacher may be asked to complete one or more questions in the TQS. (See note 1.) One special education 

teacher completes both SPA and SPB. The sample of students taking the direct assessment is not included in this count because it is not subject to the Paperwork Reduction Act reporting

4 Total number of responses represents the total number of respondents multiplied by the total number of instruments they complete. The sample of students taking the direct assessment is not 

included in this count because it is not subject to the Paperwork Reduction Act reporting.

5 The sample of students taking the direct assessment is not included in this count because it is not subject to the Paperwork Reduction Act reporting.

NOTE: Information in the table that appears in green text (i.e., burden for the spring third--grade national data collection and tracking and recruitment for the spring-third grade data collection) pertains to 

activities and burden that were approved in a previously cleared package. It is included here because these activities will continue after this current submission is cleared. Shaded numbers do not 

contribute to calculation of the totals.
A-42

A.15 Reasons for Changes in Response Burden and Costs

The increase in the burden requested for this collection as compared to the burden last approved under 

OMB# 1850-0750 is due to the fact that the child questionnaire plus another round of hearing evaluations

have been added to the spring third-grade data collection, and because third grade tracking and recruitment 

and fourth grade tracking are being carried over from the previous clearance. 

A.16 Publication Plans and Time Schedule

Publications relevant to the data collection will be part of the reports resulting from the spring third-grade 

data collection. A data file with data from the third-grade collections will be produced and made available to 

researchers in a public-use format. Also produced from the third-grade collections will be a restricted-use data 

file. Researchers who are approved by NCES’s data confidentiality office for a restricted-use license can 

access restricted-use data files, which include more sensitive items and items that pertain to smaller numbers 

of children (e.g., information about the presence of specific disabilities). To be approved for a restricted-use 

license, researchers must demonstrate that they have a research question that cannot be answered with the

public-use data and that they have the infrastructure to keep the data secure to prevent loss or unauthorized 

use. Codebooks and user’s manuals will be produced for use with the public- and restricted-use data files. All 

data will be merged at the child level. Data files will include all instrument variables (except for those that 

gather directly identifying information, such as the names of household members) and relevant associated 

variables, such as derived variables and assessment scores. Data will be released through Electronic Codebook 

(ECB) software that allows users to create customized data files in standard statistical software packages 

(SPSS, SAS, and Stata) and to view codebook information. A file record layout will also be provided so that 

analysis packages other than SPSS/PC, SAS/PC, and Stata/PC (e.g., analysis packages for Apple computers) 

can be used to analyze the ECLS-K:2011 data.

The ECLS-K:2011 reports and publications will include detailed methodological reports describing all aspects 

of the data collection effort and psychometric reports outlining properties of the study instruments, as well as 

reports that describe the population of children who were kindergartners in the 2010-11 school year as they 

progress through school.

The operational schedule for the ECLS-K:2011 spring third-grade data collection is shown in table A-8. Table 

A-8 also shows the operational schedule for the tracking and recruitment activities in the spring of third 

grade, as well as tracking for fourth grade, which were approved in previous clearance requests (1850-0750 

v.12-14).
A-43

Table A-8. Operational schedule for ECLS-K:2011 data collection activities 

Activity Start date End date

Sample Tracking and Recruitment for Spring Third-Grade Data Collection

Mail birthday cards 6/1/2013 6/1/2014

Pre-assessment call 8/9/2013 12/20/2013

Tracking movers and updating field management system 8/9/2013 12/20/2013

Parent, teacher, school administrator, school coordinator mailings 2/15/2014 4/16/2014

ECLS-K:2011 Spring Third-Grade Data Collection

Identify and subsample movers1 8/29/2012 12/15/2012

Print/program assessment 7/17/2013 11/26/2013

Print/program questionnaires 10/23/2013 1/6/2014

Train data collectors 3/3/2014 3/9/2014

National data collection 3/10/2014 7/15/2014

Process data 3/15/2014 8/15/2014

Construct data files, develop user’s manual 8/15/2014 7/10/2015

Methodology/psychometric reports2 10/19/2015 12/13/2016

Sample Tracking and Recruitment for Spring Fourth-Grade Data Collection

Mail birthday cards 6/1/2014 6/1/2015

Pre-assessment call 8/11/2014 12/19/2014

Tracking movers and updating field management system 8/11/2014 12/19/2014

Parent, teacher, school administrator, school coordinator mailings 2/15/2015 4/16/2015

Sample Tracking for Spring Fifth-Grade Data Collection

Mail birthday cards 6/1/2015 6/1/2016

Pre-assessment call 8/10/2015 12/18/2015

Tracking movers and updating field management system 8/10/2015 12/18/2015

1 Activities for identifying and subsampling movers were approved in a previous OMB package.

2 The methodology report and psychometric reports will be released significantly later than the data because they will include descriptions of both 

the third-grade and fourth-grade rounds of data collection.

NOTE: Information in the table that appears in green text (i.e., sample tracking for third-grade data collection) pertains to activities and burden that 

were approved by OMB in a previous package. It is included here because burden for these activities is being carried over since the activities have 

not yet been completed.

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

No exemption from the requirement to display the expiration date for OMB approval of the information 

collection is being requested for the ECLS-K:2011.

A.18 Exceptions to the Certification Statement

No exceptions to the certification statement apply to the ECLS-K:2011.