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"Digging much deeper to see, sense, witness and be part of unseen and unreachable"
The Reality Check Approach (RCA) is a qualitative research approach involving RCA trained researchers living with people in their own homes and sharing in their everyday lives. The intention is to have unmediated conversations, observations, and experiences with people (in their own space and time) as they go about their daily lives.
It is primarily immersive research based on the principles of ethnography but its narrower focus (on relevance, usability, for example) and the short time for immersions distinguish it from ethnography. As such, it has been noted to capture the often unmeasured and dynamic everyday experiences, awareness and aspirations of people living in poverty*. Like other qualitative research, the RCA humanises numbers and ‘hard data’ by adding rich detail on ‘why’ and ‘how’ and explaining causalities and providing insights into the processes of change.
RCA is based on the premise that experiential knowledge is a critical element of research seeking to produce people-centred accounts. RCA seeks to understand the processes, motivations, behaviours and attitudes of people with a special emphasis on understanding what people feel is relevant and appropriate development. RCA also aims to uncover the unintended consequences, positive and negative deviance and practicality of interventions. Relying on building informal relationships and adopting the position of learner, RCA researchers informally involve people in analysis of their own situation so that insights emerge naturally. These emerging insights are collected through extensive debriefing sessions with researchers and then analysed into patterns and relationships (grounded theory). RCA reports provide a synthesis of what people share anchored by a deeper understanding of context and researchers’ own experience from immersion in communities.
The RCA is based on a number of key principles which are indivisible.
RCA uses a variety of research tools during the field immersion. These include and, as it is an evolving approach, are not limited to;
Over a minimum of four days and nights in communities, researchers have informal, often spontaneous conversations which take place throughout the course of ordinary days while family members and the researcher jointly undertake chores and normal daily activities. Conversations are iterative and draw on the shared experience of daily activities as a stimulus for conversations as well as the Areas of Conversation developed prior to the immersion and based on secondary data review. These Areas of Conversation provide a framework to fuel curiosity to guide researchers’ interactions during the immersion. But researchers also facilitate discussions between people and listen to interactions between people without directly participating.
As RCA researchers stay with families within communities, they are able to observe daily life in context, importantly at different times of the day (and night) and within different spaces and situations. Researchers insist to not be treated as guests and are trained to negotiate ways so as to help ensure this.
RCA researchers also experience some of the realities of living in these communities, which in turn aids contextualization of conversations. They accompany family members to school, fields, work, markets and recreational spaces, adding meaning to what is shared orally.
The opportunity to supplement informal conversations with first-hand observation and experiences provides important opportunities to triangulate insights and understand processes of change.
It is primarily immersive research based on the principles of ethnography but its narrower focus (on relevance, usability, for example) and the short time for immersions distinguish it from ethnography. As such, it has been noted to capture the often unmeasured and dynamic everyday experiences, awareness and aspirations of people living in poverty*. Like other qualitative research, the RCA humanises numbers and ‘hard data’ by adding rich detail on ‘why’ and ‘how’ and explaining causalities and providing insights into the processes of change.
RCA is based on the premise that experiential knowledge is a critical element of research seeking to produce people-centred accounts. RCA seeks to understand the processes, motivations, behaviours and attitudes of people with a special emphasis on understanding what people feel is relevant and appropriate development. RCA also aims to uncover the unintended consequences, positive and negative deviance and practicality of interventions. Relying on building informal relationships and adopting the position of learner, RCA researchers informally involve people in analysis of their own situation so that insights emerge naturally. These emerging insights are collected through extensive debriefing sessions with researchers and then analysed into patterns and relationships (grounded theory). RCA reports provide a synthesis of what people share anchored by a deeper understanding of context and researchers’ own experience from immersion in communities.
The RCA is based on a number of key principles which are indivisible.
- First, RCA researchers seek to adopt the positionality of study participants (while acknowledging inherent limitations in doing this) and facilitate people’s own reflection and sharing of opinions, perspectives and experience. The approach enables easy access to adults, young people and children because it takes place in their own space and time. The approach values people’s views as an important element, but never the only element, of knowledge creation in complex contexts. Researchers are trained to understand the challenges of people-centered research and this includes being continuously self-aware and reflexive about their positionality.
- Second, RCA uses a grounded theory approach rather than a theory-based approach or one that relies on conceptual frameworks**. Consequently, there are no specific research questions. Instead, a more flexible and accommodating context of curiosity is developed. This eschewing of theoretical frameworks is deliberate as the approach seeks to enable emic (insider) perspectives to emerge and to caution etic (outsider) interpretation and validation. The premise for researchers is one of learning directly from people themselves.
- Third, RCA is always carried out in teams in order to minimise researcher bias and to optimise opportunities for triangulation.
- Fourth, and importantly, RCA teams are independent and make this explicit with the people who participate in the study. RCA teams do not use gatekeepers or key informants to enter the community, select households or study participants. The objective is to ensure that the views, perspectives and experiences of people are respectfully conveyed to policy and programme stakeholders. When researchers are seen as open and neutral they become a conduit rather than an intermediary.
- Fifth, RCA always has immersion at the core– not just in communities but actually living in people’s homes. The approach combines informal conversations, observation and experience.
RCA uses a variety of research tools during the field immersion. These include and, as it is an evolving approach, are not limited to;
- Informal conversations – ‘one on one’ and group conversations
- Facilitating debates – triggering informal gatherings to discuss an issue
- Listening
- Naturalistic observation (of context and practice)
- Experiencing daily life by being experiential, directly participating in chores, activities, social and cultural life
- Following up on conversations with visits to facilities, services and places talked about in conversations
- Using visuals (photos, drawings, charts, maps) to aid conversation and promote discussion
Over a minimum of four days and nights in communities, researchers have informal, often spontaneous conversations which take place throughout the course of ordinary days while family members and the researcher jointly undertake chores and normal daily activities. Conversations are iterative and draw on the shared experience of daily activities as a stimulus for conversations as well as the Areas of Conversation developed prior to the immersion and based on secondary data review. These Areas of Conversation provide a framework to fuel curiosity to guide researchers’ interactions during the immersion. But researchers also facilitate discussions between people and listen to interactions between people without directly participating.
As RCA researchers stay with families within communities, they are able to observe daily life in context, importantly at different times of the day (and night) and within different spaces and situations. Researchers insist to not be treated as guests and are trained to negotiate ways so as to help ensure this.
RCA researchers also experience some of the realities of living in these communities, which in turn aids contextualization of conversations. They accompany family members to school, fields, work, markets and recreational spaces, adding meaning to what is shared orally.
The opportunity to supplement informal conversations with first-hand observation and experiences provides important opportunities to triangulate insights and understand processes of change.
* World Bank Development Report 2015, Chapter ‘Adaptive Design, Adaptive Interventions’ Box 11.1 Taking the perspective of program beneficiaries through the Reality Check Approach.
**this does not preclude RCA being part of impact evaluations and other theory-led research but rather indicates that analysis will take the position of comparing emerging theory with given theory. Wherever possible when RCA is used in an evaluation context, researchers develop people’s theories of change based on insights gained from living with them and identify people’s own indicators of evaluation which emerge as being important and significant for people themselves and this serves as an important complement and extension of the etic indicators.
**this does not preclude RCA being part of impact evaluations and other theory-led research but rather indicates that analysis will take the position of comparing emerging theory with given theory. Wherever possible when RCA is used in an evaluation context, researchers develop people’s theories of change based on insights gained from living with them and identify people’s own indicators of evaluation which emerge as being important and significant for people themselves and this serves as an important complement and extension of the etic indicators.
What people say about RCA
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“The Reality Check Approach is the participatory innovation of the early 21st century with the greatest promise to transform knowing and action at scale”
Prof. Robert Chambers (2017) ‘Can We Know Better? Reflections for Development’