Tired, nervous, excited, and hungry… I’m sitting in the Toronto airport about to return home to Vancouver after a whirlwind 24 hour stopover! I have spent the full day today meeting with the developing and sponsoring editors of my textbook. That’s right! I’m adapting a textbook! Specifically, I’m adapting Cozby’s Methods in Behavioural Research (currently in its 10th edition) for the first Canadian edition of this text. This is what we use for our Psyc 217 Research Methods courses at UBC.
Wow! I never thought I’d be writing a textbook… at least not so early in my career. But the opportunity presented itself, and I’m never one to pass on a chance to challenge myself and grow my skill set. Recently I have been feeling pretty nervous about the whole thing, including a touch regretful at the thought of the time committment that’s going to be involved. But after today’s meetings, during which we went through each chapter’s key needed revisions, the whole thing is feeling much more do-able. Still a lot of work, but manageable. Kim & Jen (the editors mentioned above) did a great job assuring me I needn’t change everything this round. The most important tasks are updating examples (featuring Canadian research where it makes sense to do so), and clarifying the writing. And it all relates back to my Research Methods course… so time spent on this book is time spent developing my thinking and knowledge base for that course.
Students: are you interested? I’ll be developing this text over the next year and a half, and I would *love* to have student input on how I can make this text better for the next generations of Psyc 217 students! If you’re interested in contributing your ideas and feedback about this text – particularly if you’ve already taken the course with me – please get in touch with me!
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