On Thursday 9th June the Education Studies Department are hosting a community get-together 11-2pm in our outdoor garden area behind the Social Sciences building. It will be a chance to meet up with students from your course and from other courses. Everyone is encouraged to bring their own lunch. There will be some activities to join in with or chances to chat and catch up. All our community are welcome and encouraged to come (students and staff). We also have an indoor room booked if the weather is not kind to us.

Come along and join us on Thursday 9th June from 11am. I will send out further reminders as we get nearer to the event.

Mixing methods for the study of topical affairs - an Advanced Training Event convened by Noortje Marres

The winner for the Award was announced at the AGCAS Awards for Excellence 2022 presentation at the AGCAS Annual Conference on 22 June 2022. Laura Oxley was awarded due to her outstanding performance on her PG Diploma.

Warwick Economics PhD student, Adam Di Liza, has received the Best Paper prize of the Business and Industry Section of the Royal Statistical Society awarded at the PhD Symposium 2024 in Industrial Economics.

Adam's paper, Social Influence in Online Reviews: Evidence from the Steam Store, discusses his research on how the reviews left by users might influence the reviews others leave. Using a policy change on the Steam gaming platform the paper shows that when users are exposed to the reviews of others, they are more likely to leave a negative review if they see a negative review. However, this does not happen when users see a positive review. This negativity bias increases the gap between lower rated and higher rated games. Other key findings of this research point out that less experienced users are influenced by the reviews of others much more, and policies that correct this negative bias increase the sales of products on the platform.

Adam, who is a first year PhD student of Economics at Warwick, was awarded the Best Paper prize of the Business and Industrial Section of the Royal Statistical Society for the best contribution to the use and advancement of statistical-econometric methods and/or data collection to the analysis of industrial economic issues.

Adam's prize was announced at the PhD Symposium in Industrial Economics, as part of a two-day research conference of the Network of Industrial Economists (NIE) on Innovation and Competition in Digital Platforms held at the University of Warwick on 27-28 June 2024. The symposium brings together early career economists (PhD students and postdoctoral researchers) to foster discussion and dissemination of research in all areas of industrial economics and to provide them with feedback on their work from a designated discussant drawn from both internal and external faculty.

Commented on the award, Adam said:

“It's great that so many people found my research interesting. Understanding the specifics of online review generation is hopefully useful for platforms, but also us as consumers. Not only did I get really good feedback, but I got to discuss this in detail with my fellow presenters throughout the day. Both my supervisors, Professor Mirko Draca and Dr Ao Wang, have been of immense help as I wrote this up over the last few months and I definitely couldn't have done this without them.”

We congratulate Adam on this achievement and wish him further successes in the future.

Related information

Adam Di Liza is a first year PhD student in the Department of Economics at the University of Warwick. Further information about his research and publications can be found on his PhD student Profile – Adam Di Liza.

The Network of Industrial Economists

Established in 1970, the Network of Industrial Economists (NIE) is a forum for interchange among university economists in the UK, and for interaction between academia, business, and government on topics of industry economics.

NIE Conference and PhD Symposium 2024, 27-28 June 2024, University of Warwick

Royal Statistical Society

Founded in 1834, the Royal Statistical Society is one of the world’s leading organisations advocating for the importance of statistics and data. It’s a professional body for all statisticians and data analysts with more than 10,000 members in the UK and across the world.

As a part of the LEGACY project, Dr Heike Behle recently presented a paper in which two ways to measure learning gain were critically assessed: Credentials and self-assessed improvement of specific skills.

Both ways have drawbacks: Credentials can be an effective way of measuring student learning within a particular class, since most institutions have a scaled grading system already in place. It is problematic, however, to use across classes and institutions and it does not measure the ‘distance travelled’ during higher education. On the other hand, self-assessed improvement of skills will always be subjective and will differ according to individuals’ personality and their personal and HE-related circumstances such as gender and subject studied. It is also important to notice that both data is censored, i.e. improvement is not unlimited.

Using Futuretrack data, Heike compared both ways and found that those who increased their learning gain using credentials are less likely to assess their skills highly, both variable correlate negatively. The findings are currently being prepared for publication. Reported in THES.

Every year, several awards and prizes are granted to a selection of our graduating students to recognise and celebrate the success of our top performers! We are proud to announce this year's winners.

The Department of Politics and International Studies (PAIS) is thrilled to announce that we are No 1 again among Russell Group Politics Departments, in the National Student Survey (NSS). *

Our average positivity score was top of the Russell Group and 7.84% above the Russell Group average.

The British Academy is inviting proposals from early career researchers in the humanities and social sciences wishing to pursue an independent research project, towards the completion of a significant piece of publishable research.

Applicants must be researchers from the humanities and social sciences and be based at an eligible university or research organisation for the duration of the Fellowship.

Applicants must be of Early Career Status, meaning they must apply within three years from the date of their successful viva voce examination. For this round of competition, applicants are expected to have completed their viva voce between 1 April 2022 and 1 April 2025.

For more information and how to apply click hereLink opens in a new window

Are you interested in developing your skills, enhancing the student experience, and being paid in the process?

The Department of Sociology is currently inviting applications from finalist students for a number of 'Student Voice' Ambassador roles. Ambassadors will act as an interface between students and staff, feeding back both ways. The role will include, for example, inputting into departmental discussions on teaching policy and curriculum change.

If you are interested in this role, please send your CV and a supporting statement (of up to 350 words) outlining why you feel you would make a good 'Student Voice' Ambassador to the department’s Director of Student Experience, Dr Andre Celtel (A.Celtel@warwick.ac.uk).

The closing date for applications is 2 pm on Thursday 03 October 2019.

The University of Warwick’s Centre for Teacher Education (CTE) has received a glowing report following a recent Ofsted inspection, highlighting the exceptional quality of training and support provided to its teaching trainees. The inspection report underscores the University’s commitment to nurturing future educators who are well-prepared and passionate about their careers.