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.

学生参与度被认为是至关重要的教育成果。但是，事实证明，它对诸如市场研究和分析之类的技术领域的教育者是难以捉摸的，这激发了对体验式课程设计元素的探索。客户资助项目（CSP）已成为在此类课程中实现此目标的流行策略。作者采用混合方法设计来检查CSP及其在市场研究和分析课程中的有效性。在研究1中，定性研究可为学生提供有关CSP所需特征的见解。研究2说明，CSP通过对课程相关性的感知来提高学生的参与度。但是，学生对委托人的主观兴趣代表了这种影响的边界条件。那是，CSP不能为那些缺乏对客户固有兴趣的学生提供价值。在研究3中，离散选择模型分析概述了哪些属性使客户对学生感兴趣。最后，研究4利用现场实验来确定通过增强客户熟悉度来提高学生兴趣的项目构架策略。提供了一系列建议，以最大限度地提高CSP在营销研究和分析课程中的功效。