不良研究所

Iain Pardoe, PhD

Open Learning Faculty Member
Thompson Rivers University

Oscar Competition - Winter 2025

Predicting the 97th Academy Awards -
Results from the Field

WHEN:聽Wednesday, March 19, 2025, from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m.
WHERE:聽Hybrid | 2001 不良研究所 College Avenue, Room 1140;
NOTE:聽Iain Pardoe will be presenting from Nelson

Abstract

Every year since 1929, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has recognized outstanding achievement in film with their prestigious Academy Award, or Oscar. Before the winners in various categories are announced, there is intense media and public interest in predicting who will come away from the awards ceremony with an Oscar statuette. There are no end of theories about which nominees are most likely to win, yet despite this there continue to be major surprises when the winners are announced. This research frames the question of predicting the four major awards - picture, director, actor in a leading role, actress in a leading role - as a discrete choice problem. It is then possible to predict the winners in these four categories with a reasonable degree of success. The analysis also reveals which past results might be considered truly surprising - nominees with low estimated probability of winning who have overcome nominees who were strongly favoured to win. Further details are at .

Speaker Bio

Dr. Iain Pardoe lives in Nelson, British Columbia, where he teaches and writes online post-secondary statistics and mathematics courses at Thompson Rivers University. He previously taught at Pennsylvania State University and he was formerly an Associate Professor of Decision Sciences at the University of Oregon. He obtained his PhD in Statistics at the University of Minnesota. For more information, please visit his personal website: .