Multigrade classrooms represent a widespread reality globally, involving approximately 30% of primary school students worldwide and over 25,700 students in Italy. Managing these classes presents specific challenges for teachers, making it necessary to adopt effective strategies to ensure inclusive and high-quality teaching. National and international studies highlight digital technologies as valuable tools for supporting collaborative and personalized learning, managing diverse student groups, and broadening access to educational resources.

This empirical research presents findings from a national survey conducted among teachers of all primary and lower secondary multigrade classrooms in Italy. The study integrates exploratory, descriptive, and analytical characteristics to enable a multilevel analysis of multigrade teaching practices, perceptions of technology use, and relationships between variables such as context-specific challenges, the peculiarities of different subjects and curricular approaches, and adopted technological solutions or applications.

The questionnaire is organized into four principal sections:
- Teacher Profile: This section covers demographic information, teaching experience, and training in multigrade teaching methods and technology.
- Technology Availability and Use: An overview of available technological resources and how frequently they are utilized in the classroom.
- Challenges, Strategies, and Technology Perception: This section explores teachers’ perceived challenges in multigrade teaching, their organizational strategies, and perceptions of technology’s effectiveness in addressing these challenges.
- Future Scenarios: Teachers’ views on advanced technologies for classroom management, personalized learning, and curriculum flexibility. While AI is not explicitly cited, questions encourage imaginative exploration of technological potential.

The survey combines closed-ended responses (multiple-choice items, Likert scales, and semantic differential scales) with open-ended responses, allowing for both quantitative and qualitative data collection. The questionnaire was distributed online to all multigrade classrooms across Italy (852 schools) and collected responses from 1061 teachers working in single, extreme, and contiguous multigrade settings, primarily located in mountainous and island areas. Quantitative analysis was carried out utilizing descriptive statistics and correlation assessments, while qualitative analysis employed thematic coding of open-ended responses to discern emerging trends and subjective interpretations regarding the use of technology. The results provide a significant contribution to research on multigrade classrooms and the debate on the use of technologies in overcoming pedagogical and organizational challenges in multigrade settings. At the same time, they offer strategic insights for policymakers, researchers, and education professionals, supporting the development of targeted interventions and innovative training programs for multigrade teachers.

Keywords: Digital technologies, Multigrade classrooms, Teaching challenges.