L’importanza dei mixed methods nella ricerca valutativa, le ragioni di un numero monografico

The paper aims to introduce the reflection upon the Mixed Methods (MM) approach and evaluation research that will be attained in the following contributions. It is by now largely recognised how rarely one single evaluation strategy may fully capture the entire complexity of social phenomena happening in the “real” world. Nowadays, many recognise that combining different strategies and techniques within one evaluative process it is more efficient than using conventional evaluation approaches with a single research strategy. This article recomposes the developments of a need for a MM approach in Italy. Moreover, other papers in this special issue are briefly presented by identifying a common thread, represented by the reflection suggested in the paper by Jennifer Greene.