Robert Wood (psychologist)

Robert Wood is a psychologist and writer. He was born 10 March 1941 in Gosforth, Newcastle upon Tyne, of an English father and a Welsh mother. With both parents hailing from Sunderland he moved there soon after his father returned from the war. Having attended Fulwell Infants School and Fulwell Junior School, where he sat and passed the 11+, Monkwearmouth Grammar School followed and later, in September 1959, the University of Nottingham where he studied Mathematics and Statistics. In September 1962 he moved to London and commenced training to be an actuary but,unsure about committing to a future in the insurance industry, abandoned that plan early in 1964. Following short spells as a supply teacher with the ILEA, and as a statistician with Tate & Lyle, the Labour election victory of 1964 inspired in him a belief that education might be a vocation and, in particular, given his skills, the field of educational research . Accordingly, he sought and secured a post at the National Foundation for Educational Research where he began work in October 1964. In the four years that followed he advanced earlier American work on item characteristic curve theory and did pioneering work in a new subject called item banking. Early in 1968, seeking postgraduate work in psychometrics and finding none in this country, he applied to enter the University of Chicago and was successful in winning a scholarship. Three years later he was awarded a PhD from that institution.

Returning to the UK in July 1971 he took up the position of Director of Research in the University of London School Examinations Department, a post he had successfully interviewed for earlier that year. In 1980 he was seconded to direct the Evaluation of Testing in Schools Project at the Institute of Education, also in the University of London. In 1981, feeling his career was going nowhere, he moved his family to Jamaica where he served as Professor of Educational Measurement in the University of the West Indies. In early 1984, tired of conditions in Jamaica, he took up a Fellowship at the Flinders University of South Australia. Later that year he was appointed to be Director of the New Zealand Council for Educational Research. Returning to the UK to prepare for the move he became frustrated by the emergence of internal opposition to his appointment and in March 1985 declared his intention not to take up post.

Once more he was partly obliged, partly inclined, to start a new career. Having become an Associate of the British Psychological Society during the 1970's, and thus qualified to seek work as an occupational psychologist, he became a full-time consultant helping, in 1985, to establish Psychometric Research & Development Ltd. In 1986 he was made a Fellow of the British Psychological Society and for the academic year 1987-88 he was Visiting Professor at the London Institute. In 1990 he joined Pearn Kandola Occupational Psychologists in Oxford. From 1998 to 2005 he was a Special Professor in the School of Education at the University of Nottingham. In 1998 the same university conferred on him the degree of DLitt in recognition of over 120 published books, monographs and articles including Assessment and Testing (Cambridge University Press) and (with Tim Payne) Competency-Based Recruitment and Selection. Having been a partner at Pearn Kandola from 1993 until March 2000, he left to pursue his own interests.

Married with two daughters and five grandchildren, his memoir Mackem Mayhem appeared in 2004. That was followed, in 2005, 2006 and 2007, by three novels – Pushing Envelopes, Chekyll and Ide, and Ten a Penny - comprising the Moving Deckchairs trilogy. In early 2007 he started writing short stories, achieving recognition quite quickly with six stories - four top 30 finishes in five Secret Attic competitions and a Highly Commended and Commended in one of the Twisted Tongue flash fiction competitions. He is now writing walking books, starting with a collection of walks entitled Walks into History: Hampshire.

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