My husband, Colin Robson, who has died aged 89, pioneered the degree of behavioural sciences, combining psychology and sociology, in the 1970s. The fifth edition of his textbook Real World Research, originally published in 1993, came out earlier this year.
Born in the village of Almondbury, near Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, the only child of Mary (nee Addy) and Raymond Robson, a clerk in the council rates office, he attended King James’s grammar school in the village, remaining loyal to his home town and its football team all his life. After studying physics at Manchester University, he signed up for a PGCE at King’s College London, where he came across psychology for the first time.
National service was still compulsory in the 1950s but Colin gained a short service commission with the Royal Air Force and spent the three years teaching electronics at No 1 Radio School, then at RAF Locking, near Weston-super-Mare in Somerset.
He and I met as teenagers in Almondbury, which I visited each summer to stay with the couple who had looked after me as an evacuee from London during the second world war. We married in 1958. With two small children, we lived in south-east London, where Colin taught physics at Colfe’s grammar school in Lewisham, which enabled him to travel up to Birkbeck College London in the evenings to study for a further degree, this time in psychology. Four years later, in 1965, he gained a first-class degree and a position as lecturer in the department.
Huddersfield Polytechnic (now the University of Huddersfield) needed a head of education and Colin, after five years at Birkbeck and now with a PhD, fitted the bill. He took up the post in 1971. After some time, Colin moved across to lead the behavioural science department, which proved to be highly successful.
In association with the Hester Adrian Research Centre, University of Manchester, Colin directed a series of evaluation projects, mainly in aspects of special educational needs. For more than a decade (1996-2007), he was chief consultant at the OECD Centre for Educational Research and Innovation in Paris for projects evaluating and comparing how different countries educated students with disabilities.
After retirement as emeritus professor, we decided to move to Bath in 2003 to be nearer to our family in the south of England. A modest man with a strong sense of humour and many interests, Colin coped stoically with a serious stroke in 2019 which left him physically paralysed but with his mental faculties intact. With the help of an excellent live-in carer, he was able to enjoy life as much as possible.
He is survived by me, our children, Mark and Catherine, five grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
