{"id":7,"date":"2019-11-19T23:10:30","date_gmt":"2019-11-19T23:10:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/colincooper.org\/?page_id=7"},"modified":"2025-11-29T15:48:32","modified_gmt":"2025-11-29T20:48:32","slug":"colin-coopers-background","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/colincooper.org\/?page_id=7","title":{"rendered":"About Me"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Early life<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I was born in Enfield<\/a>, North London and my family later moved to St Austell<\/a>, Cornwall – which I always regard as “home”. The picture below is of Charlestown<\/a> – St Austell’s port. Back in the 1960s quite large ships used to use the port<\/a> for the export of china clay. It was amazing watching them squeezing into the harbour at high tide by bouncing off the stone wall on the entrance to the harbour. Tourism and movies<\/a> have taken over now!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Exeter<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I went to Exeter University<\/a>, initially studying Chemistry. However after reading Hans Eysenck<\/a>‘s books “Sense and Nonsense in Psychology” and “Fact and Fiction in Psychology” I was hooked on psychology – particularly the idea of applying the methods of physics to understanding human behaviour. What I did not know when I changed course was that the Exeter Psychology<\/a> department then had a leading expert in this field. Exeter was then a small, friendly university, where Paul Kline<\/a> and Ian Gordon were great influences, role models and (later) friends; in those days there were only 30 students in each year, and so staff got to know students as individuals. It’s such a shame that the massive expansion of universities made it all so much more impersonal (from both the students’ and lecturers’ points of view).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As an undergraduate I was pleasantly surprised to find that theories tended to be built on hard data, rather than unsystematic observations. I became increasingly interested in individual differences – the study of the basic processes which led people to develop in different ways. After graduating I worked for the Ministry of Defence as a psychologist, but realised that the longer I stayed there, the focus would switch from psychology to management – and I did not want that. I therefore returned to Exeter to study for a PhD, and stayed on as a research fellow for three more years. Whilst my work was tremendously enjoyable, exploring the Devon countryside was a dream.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Seeing otters playing on the river bank near the tent, or coming face to face with a stag in the early morning mist (I don’t know who was the more surprised) are memories which endure. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Coleraine<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

University lectureships were scarce in the mid-1980s (thanks to Mrs T) so I was fortunate to be appointed to one at Coleraine<\/a>, Northern Ireland in 1986. It was another small, friendly department in a beautiful<\/a> (albeit remote) part of the country.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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And because of “the troubles” hardly anyone went there. How things have changed! Though I still cannot quite fathom the university’s logic of building a tower-block in the middle of a peat bog<\/a>. (The results were quite predictable.)<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Belfast<\/h3>\n\n\n
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Six years later I moved to Queen’s University, Belfast where I remained for 20 years, researching and teaching individual differences and psychometrics. It was a much larger department<\/a> in a good university which joined the Russell Group<\/a> and I thoroughly enjoyed my time there – having excellent colleagues, PhD students and facilities. However we visited London Ontario<\/a> on sabbatical in 2002, and life in Belfast was never quite the same… so we applied for (and eventually obtained) permanent residency in Canada.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Canada<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In 2012 I took early retirement, and emigrated to Canada. We first lived in Picton<\/a> (Ontario) mainly because it was close to the beaches and dunes at Sandbanks<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

The 50-or-so nearby wineries<\/a> were also an attraction!<\/p>\n\n\n

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(Canada has hot summers; it isn’t always<\/em> -20). But then the area became busy with visitors from Toronto<\/a>, and it became impossible to get to the beach <\/a>in summer, so we moved to London<\/a> (Ontario) which offers quite a lot more culture<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The stereotype of life in Canada is sometimes correct, though; you can’t just jump in the car and drive away in winter…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Television<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

“Test the Nation<\/a>” was fun, and (hopefully) taught literally millions of participants something about intelligence, and something about themselves. In 2002 I was contacted out of the blue by a TV production company who had bought the rights to produce a programme delivering a validated IQ test over the TV and internet. The only problem is that it had to be broadcast (live) in 12 weeks – and they had no test. I developed one, had it administered it alongside a standard IQ test to random samples of the population in various regions of the UK, and enjoyed a marathon (but enjoyable) appearance on live TV – where everyone prayed that the technology would not fail us. (It all went perfectly.) The show was so popular that we repeated it three more times, with three different IQ tests. Here’s a large chunk of Test #2 from 2003, complete with the answers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n