ABSTRACT
In her 1986 book Research and Policy Janet Finch makes a distinction between quantitative and qualitative approaches to research. She compares and contrasts the different relationships these have to education policy. This is a useful distinction, but it concentrates on only one aspect of research: the methods of data collection and analysis used. Also it sets up a rather black-and-white set of opposites which, while useful as a way of conceptualizing the relationship between policy and research, does tend to oversimplify the situation.
