To further promote academic excellence, achieve the goal of cultivating outstanding talents, and establish a research and education atmosphere oriented towards excellence and common progress of academic teams and students, the ECNU Sci-Tech Business Consortium officially launched the Excellent Academic Teacher-Student Joint Funding Program (hereinafter referred to as the "Mentorship" program) on May 16, 2023. The main goal of the program is to guide students to establish a long-term development goal of pursuing excellence, enhance their competitiveness through scientific research, and help them complete master's and doctoral degrees at world-class universities. On June 14, 2023, the "Mentorship system" mentor-student meeting was successfully held. A total of six mentors and 14 students participated in the first round, including 10 undergraduate students (including 2 international students) and 4 postgraduate students. A series of reports on the research progress of each project are now being launched to showcase the joint academic cultivation achievements of them and improve the quality of talent cultivation.
Main Applicant
Xuejing MA, is an assistant professor of marketing at Asia Europe Business School, East China Normal University. She received her Ph.D. degree from Peking University and her B.A. and B.S. degrees from Renmin University of China. Her research interests include quantitative marketing, social interactions and new media, motivation and incentives. The research has been published in journals such as Journal of Interactive Marketing, Journal of Business Research, Applied Economics Letters, etc. She hosted one National Natural Science Foundation Youth Program and one Shanghai Social Science Youth Program. Mainly teaching courses on big data marketing, artificial intelligence, and business decision-making. She has won the first prize in the teaching competition for young teachers at East China Normal University.
Joint applicant
He Chuyun, a 2020 undergraduate student in Business Administration (China-France Innovative Experimental Class), won the third prize in the 13th National College Student Market Research and Analysis Competition and the M Award in the American College Student Mathematical Modeling Competition. She has been honored multiple times with honors such as Outstanding Student of East China Normal University and Outstanding Student Cadre of East China Normal University. My research interests mainly focus on social media marketing pricing, big data marketing push, investment consumption cycle, and other fields.
Zhou Hongtong, a 2020 undergraduate student in Business Administration (China-France Innovative Experimental Class), has been awarded the Outstanding Student Scholarship and the East China Normal University Social Practice Award. Interested research fields include big data marketing, Internet finance, household consumption, etc.
Wang Liwen, a 2021 undergraduate student in Business Administration (China-France Innovative Experimental Class), has been awarded the 1st Class Scholarship for Outstanding Students at East China Normal University and the Honor of Outstanding Students at East China Normal University. The research areas of interest include quantitative marketing, personal IP creation, big data marketing, etc.
Main research scope
The team has established a research topic on NFT trading prices, searched and read many relevant literature and theories on NFT trading, and after multiple discussions and modifications, formed a research hypothesis framework. Afterwards, team members used Python to crawl data from NFT trading websites and conducted empirical analysis using the double difference model learned in the course. The team regularly holds paper meetings to ensure the continuous progress of the paper and ultimately complete the writing efficiently.
Important activities carried out
The project team regularly holds discussion meetings to summarize the current research progress and problems encountered, and conducts focused discussions during the meetings. This model is not only beneficial for students to solve difficulties in the research process in a timely manner, but also allows mentors to better understand the progress of students and provide timely guidance and adjustments. The regular meetings under this "master apprentice system" not only promote the improvement of students' research ability and academic literacy, but also help establish a good academic exchange atmosphere. Through communication and discussion, students can have a clearer understanding of their research direction and goals, while also receiving inspiration and assistance from other students and mentors.
With the support of the "Mentorship System" program, student He Chuyun participated in the 2023 JMS China Marketing Science Academic Annual Conference and Doctoral Forum, gaining a deeper understanding of "what kind of research is meaningful" and "how to make good research”. In addition, the team members actively participated in a series of academic lectures organized by the school, which not only allowed everyone to learn about the latest research achievements in the field of marketing, but also stimulated the interest of team members in future research, providing new ideas for academic exploration for students.
On December 11, 2023, project team members participated in an academic lecture by Associate Professor Li Xing from Peking University on "Customer Flow in E-commerce Live Streaming: Identifying the Enhancing Effects of Sales Promotion". At present, the team has completed one work paper. Two senior undergraduate students will go to well-known universities both domestically and internationally for further studies in 2024.
Students Feedbacks
He Chuyun:
Through participating in the "Mentorship System" program, I have gone through a complete process of academic research, including topic selection, literature reading and review, data collection and processing, model selection, empirical analysis, and paper writing. This has given me a deeper understanding of empirical research, which has also honed my ability to explore practical business problems using quantitative theoretical models. This experience has further strengthened my desire for academic advancement in the future, and has inspired me to conduct more innovative and meaningful research on my future research path.
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Zhou Hongtong:
The mentorship program not only provided me with abundant academic resources and research guidance, but also greatly stimulated my passion for knowledge exploration. This mentor-student collaboration model has given me a unique learning opportunity to directly participate in high-level scientific research projects, which not only enhances my research abilities but also teaches me how to cope with various challenges in academic research. In the project, I learned how to effectively integrate data and use software such as R and Stata for data analysis. Through this program, I have also gained a clearer understanding of my academic direction and career goals.
Wang Liwen:
The program has opened a rich academic journey for me. The research guidance provided by my supervisor has made me deeply appreciate the joy of knowledge exploration, and helped me better understand the relationship between theory and practice, which has deepened my exploration in the academic field. This will become a solid cornerstone of my future academic career, leading me to take more solid steps on the path of academic exploration.