Student Interest in Client-Sponsored Projects: The Quest for Engagement in Marketing Research Courses

Student engagement is regarded as a critical educational outcome. However, it has proven to be elusive to educators within technical domains, such as marketing research and analytics, which has inspired the exploration of experiential course design elements. Client-sponsored projects (CSPs) have become a popular tactic to meet this objective in such courses. The authors utilize a mixed-methods design to examine CSPs and their effectiveness in marketing research and analytics courses. In Study 1, qualitative research yields student insights regarding the desired characteristics of a CSP. Study 2 illustrates that CSPs boost student engagement through perceptions of course relevance. However, students’ subjective interest in the client represented a boundary condition for this effect. That is, CSPs did not offer value to students who lacked inherent interest in the client. In Study 3, a discrete choice model analysis outlined what attributes make clients interesting for students. Finally, Study 4 utilizes a field experiment to identify project-framing tactics that increase student interest through enhanced client familiarity. A series of recommendations are provided to maximize the efficacy of CSPs to marketing research and analytics courses.