... of evidence to things they do and do not believe in. Furthermore, familiarity with research methods might reduce the likelihood of jumping to conclusions. Complexity is the other reason why research needs to be carried out as a guide to good practice. The different methods of research techniques enable policy makers to reach better and more informed decisions. This leads on to the 'how' of health services research. The 'how' is a set of methods (hard and soft data within this context) which enable health professionals to detect patterns and to have confidence that the interpretation that is placed on them is the correct one (Hewison 1995). Hard Data Couchman and Dawson (1990) compare quantitative data to 'hard' data generated from standardized questionnaires, while qualitative data represents 'soft' data derived from indepth interviews. They (Couchman and Dawson 1990) further classify these differences as producing inductive logic through qualitative methods from one extreme, ...

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