Rapid Assessment Process

Basic Characteristics

Rapid assessment allows a team of at least two individuals to gain sufficient understanding of a situation in 1 to 6 weeks to make preliminary decisions for the design and implementation of applied activities or additional research. Rapid assessment can also be used for monitoring and evaluation. Usually rapid assessment should not be used for estimating numbers or percentages. Rapid assessment has been used in areas as diverse as wetlands evaluation, citywide needs assessment, early childhood care evaluation, monitoring of home ownership patterns among minorities, client satisfaction assessment at clinics in Africa, marketing studies, and landscape planning. Results are different from those produced by longer-term fieldwork. In some cases, intensive interaction by a research team over a short period may produce better results than those produced by a lone researcher over a long period. Rapid assessment will almost always produce results in a fraction of the time and at less cost in comparison with traditional qualitative research.

Although the 1- to 6-week time period for rapid assessment is recognized as arbitrary, there is growing consensus among practitioners that it is extremely difficult to complete the process of data collection, data analysis, and additional data collection as part of an iterative process and to then prepare a report in less than a week. “Rapid” does not mean “rushed.” Schedules must be designed with sufficient flexibility that the team can take full advantage of unanticipated opportunities.

Triangulation is a critical element of rapid assessment. Triangulation is a metaphor employed by social scientists for the use of data from different sources, the use of several different researchers, the use of multiple perspectives to interpret a single set of data, and the use of multiple methods to study a single problem.

Rapid assessment shares many of the characteristics of ethnographic research but differs in two important ways. First, more than one researcher is always involved in data collection. Second, more than one researcher is involved in an iterative approach to data analysis and additional data collection. The intensive teamwork for both the data collection and analysis is an alternative to prolonged fieldwork associated with traditional qualitative research.

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