Five research principles to overcome the dualism quantitative-qualitative

Th e article intends to suggest some refl ections about the criteria that should guide the design of empirical research and the evaluation of research plans and reports. Th e main idea is to demonstrate that educational research is intrinsically multi-method and mixed-method. Qualitative and quantitative moments are present in all the research and the two approaches are closely interrelated. To overcome a “paradigmatic” view that impose the rigid separation between quantitative and qualitative approaches, fi ve research principles are proposed. Th ese principles are related to: a) planning of the research; b) declaration of the theoretical “lenses” by which the researcher see (and interprets) the world; c) designing and documenting of the research plan; d) analysis of the data gathered; e) defi nition of the logical extension of the research results. Th e adoption of the illustrated principles is a possible way to promote a new “culture of empirical research” in education, based on openness to diff erent theoretical contributions (also from diff erent disciplines), epistemological approaches and operative strategies. A research that aspires to have a decisive impact on current educational practices must be a research able to defi ne not only “what works”, but also “how works”, “why works” and “where works”, and only the synergy between the qualitative and quantitative approaches can aid the research to pursue successful these objectives