Introduzione all’edizione italiana

[Autom. eng. transl.] Collecting information for research or evaluation is neither a spontaneous nor a trivial activity. It is rather a process oriented to decision and therefore to the creation of meaning. Methodology of information gathering recomposes the fundamental questions and the different techniques of observation, the questionnaire, the interview and the study of documents into a conceptual and procedural framework. Once the epistemological, morphological and methodological foundations of information gathering have been recovered, the volume is presented as a valid manual for students who are oriented between the different methods of the process, but also as a stimulating reflection for the experts who intend to study one of the fundamental components of the own work, whose apparent ordinariness risks hiding implicit choices and indirect consequences.