China’s Popular Educational Activity: Does Social Practice Really Help Enhance College Student Learning Outcomes?

Abstract

Social Practice (SP) is a type of educational activity with “Chinese characteristic,” and it is widespread and accessible in China’s higher education institutions. This paper explores the features of Social Practice participants and the impacts of these practices on college student learning outcomes with quantitative data collected through the “China College Student Survey” (CCSS) Project. In particular, the paper examines three types of social practices (Academic Social Practice, Professional Social Practice, and Service Social Practice) and their impacts on student self-reported gains in knowledge, skills, and values. The study finds that: a) more than 70% college students have social practice experience, and another 26% intend to participate before graduation; b) engaging in social practice is statistically significantly correlated with self-reported improvement in all kinds of learning outcomes; c) the impact varies by the type of practices and student level of engagement. These findings suggest that it is beneficial for students to engage in social practice during college. Higher education institutions should provide students with opportunities to participate in different types of social practices.

1 Introduction

Higher education is costly for the governments, higher education institutions, and education participants. Governments and individuals invest tremendous resources in higher education, but how do we know that this money is spent effectively? 1 The investors and consumers of higher education need to know the returns of their expenditures in higher education, and student learning outcomes is one of the most important returns. Based on the widespread educational ideas of “student-centered” and “outcome-based,” learning outcome is usually considered as a core concept in higher education research and practice around the world.

However, “learning outcomes” is a broad concept, especially in higher education. College students are expected to gain a series of achievements when they graduate, including knowledge, skills, values, attitude, etc. Tremendous researches have talked about what kind of knowledge, skills, qualities and values are essential for college graduates in modern society. For instance, the Association of American Colleges & Universities (AAC&U) had defined a set of “Essential Learning Outcomes” for the college students in the 21st century, including several kinds of knowledge, skills, responsibilities, etc. 2 Numerous efforts have been devoted to assessing college student learning outcomes. Moreover, in addition to measuring the level of student learning outcomes, policy makers and researchers are also interested in what factors can improve the outcomes. Only with valid and reliable evidence on crucial factors on student learning outcomes can the curriculum and teaching reform in colleges and universities be more effective.

Among the numerous studies on the factors influencing college student learning outcomes, one concept that is valuable noticing is “High-Impact Education Practices” (HIPs). The founding director of National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) George Kuh suggested ten types of HIPs in American Higher Education, including: First-Year Seminars and Experiences, Common Intellectual Experiences, Learning Communities, Writing-Intensive Courses, Collaborative Assignments and Projects, Undergraduate Research, Diversity/Global Learning, Service Learning & Community-Based Learning, Internships, Capstone Courses and Projects. 3 Why should these activities be called “High-Impact Practices”? It is, according to Kuh, “Due to their positive associations with student learning and retention.” 4 Kuh recommended that all students should engage in at least two HIPs during their college time: one in first year, and one in their major. 5

The “high impact” of HIPs has been verified by numerous researches. Students who participated in high-impact practice reported greater gains in learning and personal development. 6 HIPs cover the shortage of traditional classroom teaching in American higher education institutions, and it is an important factor to explain the increase in retention rate and improved student learning outcomes in American higher education institutions. 7

When it comes to the higher education setting in China, the meanings and scope of HIPs have been expanded. In addition to community service, undergraduate research, and global learning, Wen, Chu, and Shi (2014) also included “social practice” as a type of HIPs. 8 Social practice also been taken as a type of HIPs in an investigation of High-Impact Practices in China conducted by Wang, Huang, and Zhou (2015). 9 Furthermore, Zhang, Guo, and Shi (2017) proposed a new taxonomy of Chinese-featured HIPs, and social practice is also considered as a type of HIPs in their category. 10

However, what is “social practice”? Social practice is a series of goal-oriented, designed, organized educational activities that push students to step into society, serve the society, connect knowledge with the real world, in order to improve their knowledge application skill, creativity, etc. 11 Social practice is a widespread and accessible educational activity in China’s colleges and universities (also in primary, middle, and high schools). Nevertheless, “social practice” is not a single activity, but includes a series of activities, such as field work, community service, volunteerism, social investigation, internship, and so forth.

Observers find that social practice is a meaningful educational activity for college student learning and development. For instance, it inspires college students’ motivation for learning, enhances the sense of social responsibility, and improves knowledge application skills, creativity, and employability. 12 It also helps to develop college students’ values, improve creativity and entrepreneurship, 13 develop self-awareness, renew knowledge structure, and improve adaptability. 14

However, observers may elucidate the educational value of social practice based on their own or others’ observation or experiences. And finally there is still lack of sufficient quantitative evidence to explore the impact of social practice on college student learning outcomes.

Therefore, this paper examines the impact of social practice on college student learning outcomes with student survey data collected in China’s colleges and universities. The research questions are: a) what is the participation rate of social practice among college students in China; b) what are the impacts of social practice on college student learning outcomes?

In the era of “quality-oriented” higher education, it is meaningful, useful and valuable to explore the factors and methods to improve college student learning outcomes. This study will bring some enlightenment both for the construction of theories on social practice and the practices for higher education reform and development in China.

2 Conceptual Structure

2.1 Social Practice

Given the fact that there is not a clear definition of social practice, this paper tries to define it as: a series of activities that encourage students go out of school campus and step into the society, to engage in practical activities in real world situation that help them construct a close connection between theory and practice, and it may help to improve students’ skills of knowledge application, communication, collaboration, problem solving, critical thinking, creativity, and so forth.

There are two typical features of social practice: first, social practice is implemented outside of school campus, and the participants of social practice should go out of campus and step into society; second, social practice includes a practice activity instead of a course or some other pure knowledge learning. These features are two important criteria to judge whether an educational activity is social practice or not. Under these criteria, internship can be seen as a social practice, but extra tutoring outside of campus is not a social practice, because it is a process of knowledge learning instead of a practice activity.

Many activities, such as community service, social investigation, field work, internship, and volunteerism, are typical social practice. However, there are differences between them. Internship is not the same as volunteerism, because it is more professional-oriented and involves more professional knowledge and skills. Activity such as social investigation is different from community service, because it includes more academic features such as research design, data collection, and report writing. It is clear that different types of activities in social practices may include different assignments, practices, challenges, and may bring different impacts on student learning outcomes. Therefore, it is necessary to classify social practice into different types. This paper classifies social practice into three types:

• Academic Social Practice (ASP), the social practice which includes a series of academic assignments;

• Professional Social Practice (PSP), the social practice which involves professional knowledge and skills in a specific discipline or field;

• Service Social Practice (SSP), the social practice which usually includes community service, volunteerism, and so forth.

The questionnaire of “China College Student Survey” (CCSS) investigates three types of social practice: social investigation, internship, and community service by asking the participants “Have you ever engaged in this activity?” Participants will choose one answer from four options: “Have engaged in; Intend to engage in; Don’t intend to engage in; Haven’t decided yet.”

Since the data in this paper was collected in CCSS project, therefore, by studying the aforementioned three types of social practice, this paper will study exactly one type of ASP, PSP and SSP respectively (ASP is measured by social investigation, PSP is measured by internship, and SSP is measured by community service).

2.2 Learning Outcomes

Learning outcomes include a tremendous amount of educational achievements. This paper focuses on three types of learning outcomes:

• Knowledge (include one variable: Knowledge acquisition);

• Skill (include four variables: Communication and Expression skill, Quantitative analysis skill, Leadership & Collaboration skill, Critical thinking);

• Value (include one variable: self-awareness & values).

In the questionnaire of CCSS, these learning outcomes are measured through participants’ self-report of their learning outcomes. The maximum score of the self-report learning outcome is one hundred, and higher score means more gains of learning outcomes.

2.3 Engagement Levels

The questionnaire of CCSS asks the participants that “have you ever engaged in these activities (social investigation, internship, and community service) during your college time or intend to engage in them before graduation?” Accordingly, this paper categorizes students’ engagement in social practice into three levels:

• Level 1-Low Engaged: having engaged in one type of social practice;

• Level 2-Medium Engaged: having engaged in two types of social practice;

• Level 3-High Engaged: having engaged in all three types of social practice that are defined in this paper.

2.4 Model of Social Practice

Constructing a model may help to demonstrate social practice and its impact on learning outcomes simply and clearly (Figure 1). College campus and other organizations belong to the whole society. However, school campus is only a small part of the whole society, while social practice is in any places beyond campus, and it is a huge and wide platform for students to learn and practice. Students go out of college campus and step into the society to engage in social practice. There are lots of activities, assignments, practices, collaborations, communications, interactions, questions, problems, and challenges in social practice, and they may bring lots of educational stimulus to help enhance student growth.

FIGURE 1

The model of social practice.

As mentioned above, social practice has two typical features: feature 1, it is usually implemented outside of college campuses (“outdoor-oriented”); feature 2, it includes a practical activity instead of a pure knowledge learning course (“practice-oriented”). These two features suggest that social practice is different from the other HIPs, such as undergraduate research, first-year seminars, and learning communities. Social practice is different from these HIPs activities because it is “outdoor-oriented” and “practice-oriented,” but these HIPs activities are usually “indoor-oriented” and “knowledge-oriented.” Different contents, assignments, challenges may bring different educational stimulus to students and may bring different trainings and learning outcomes for the students.

Engaging in social practice pushes the students go out of campus and step into the wide “fields” (such as the communities, villages, cities, companies, and any fields beyond campus) to involve in practical activities. In these “fields,” students encounter the real-world assignments, problems, and practical challenges.

In the process of engaging in social practice (in the fields), students may learn to construct a close connection between knowledge and practical problems in the real-world, construct a close connection between themselves and their partners and local people, and construct a close connection between their majors and their future careers. These experiences (engaging in social practice), as an extension of the learning inside school and classroom, are meaningful, valuable and important for students’ personal, academic, and career development.

3 Methodology

The quantitative data used in this paper was collected through “China College Student Survey” (CCSS), which is a large college student survey project in China. Cooperated with NSSE (National Survey of Student Engagement) in the USA, CCSS had developed and revised its questionnaire several times since its first implementation in 2009. The questionnaire of CCSS has become a mature tool for the measurement of student learning and development. And it is a self-report questionnaire with a good validity and reliability. 15 More than 140 colleges and universities in China had participated in CCSS in last decade, and more than 400,000 data points about college student learning and development have been collected. Importantly, CCSS collected a large scale of data about college students’ engagement in social practice and their learning outcomes.

The author uses the data collected in 2014 to 2016. Fifty-four colleges and universities in China had participated in CCSS project during 2014 to 2016. Total sample size was more than 220,000, but only valid samples are used in this paper.

Matched samples were selected by PSM (Propensity Score Matching) analysis. After PSM analyzing, the author then exam the impact of social practice on student learning outcomes based on the matched samples, so that sample bias might be eliminated.

Beside the quantitative data from CCSS, some qualitative materials which collected in several semi-structured interviews of seven students in a university in China were also used to further discuss the impact of social practice on college student learning outcomes.

4 Results

4.1 The Participants of Social Practice: Who are they?

Although social practice is not a compulsory activity or course that every student must participate in, however, most of college students in China show their interest and enthusiasm on social practice.

4.2 The Participants of Social Practice

As a whole, 43.68% (observations: 122,260) college students have engaged in one or two types of social practice, and 26.74% have engaged in all three types of social practice defined in this paper. That means 70.42% (26.74% + 43.68%) undergraduate students have engaged in at least one social practice; in other words, only 29.58% did not have participated in any social practice (when they accepted this investigation).

The percentage of social practice engagement (the rate of students who had engaged in at least one social practice) in the year 2014 to 2016 are 69.20%, 72.36%, and 69.75%, respectively. The social practice engagement rate is stable from 2014 to 2016, only with a small fluctuation. It indicates that China’s college students have a stable enthusiasm and interest on social practice.

Among the students who haven’t engaged in any social practice (totally 29.58%), most of them (88.72%) show their intention to engage in social practice during their college time. That means in all college students, 70.42% have engaged in social practice and 26.24% (88.72% * 29.58%) intend to engage in one social practice before graduation, and only about 3.34% don’t intend to engage in any social practice or haven’t decided by the time when they accepted this investigation.

According to the statistical data from the Ministry of Education of China, there are 16.13 million undergraduate students in China’s higher education institutions. 16 Based on the above findings, it might be estimated that more than 11.35 million China’s undergraduate students have engaged in social practice, and about 4.23 million undergraduate students intend to engage in social practice before graduation. This shows that social practice is a “popular” educational activity among China’s college students. It suggests that social practice may impact a huge amount of college students in China’s higher education. To this extent, social practice is definitely an “influential” educational activity in China.

4.3 The Participants of Different Types of Social Practice

Among the three types of social practices defined in this paper, ASP has the highest participation rate of 53.73% (observations: 65,877), the second is SSP (50.38%), and PSP has the lowest participation rate (33.14%). To this extent, ASP is the most “popular” social practice.

Attentions should be paid to a fact that some freshmen or sophomores are not “at the right time” to engage in social practice (especially internship), therefore, only half of these students or even less have engaged in ASP, PSP or SSP, but their interests on social practice are obvious. When combining these two parts (have engaged in or intend to engage in), the percentage of students who have engaged or intend to engage in ASP, PSP, and SSP are 89.29%, 92.45%, and 84.93%, respectively. To this extent, PSP is the most “popular” social practice.

4.4 The Impact of Social Practice: What are the Effects?

Self-selection bias may exist in quantitative study. For instance, student in high reputation university, with positive learning attitude and a higher GPA, may have a higher engagement rate in social practice, and vice versa. Therefore, students’ personal features may interfere with the research results, and the impact of social practice on student learning outcomes might be misunderstood if we compare the students who have engaged in social practice and the students who haven’t engaged directly, because these two groups may not be homogeneous.

Therefore, the author selects the matched samples through PSM (Propensity Score Matching) analysis, in order to ensure that the “treated” and “controlled” groups are homogeneous. Regression analysis is based on the matched samples (treated and untreated group). The PSM model is shown in (1):

P (SP_i = 1) = α₀ + α₁ F_i + α₂ X_i + ε_i ………………………… (1)

P: propensity score

SP: social practice

F_i: students’ personal features, including GPA, learning attitude, learning habit, social desirability

X_i: other control variables, including gender, family background, discipline, grade, institute type.

Matching the treated and untreated based on p-score

4.5 The General Impact of Social Practice on Student’s Learning Outcomes

This paper explores the impact of social practice on college student learning outcomes mainly through regression analysis (based on the matched samples in PSM analysis). Firstly, it explores the general impact of social practice on student learning outcomes. The regression equation is shown as (2):

Outcomes_i = β₀+ β₁SP_i + β₂X_i + ε_i ……………………… (2)

Outcomes: college student learning outcomes

SP: social practice (two groups, Group A: haven’t engaged in social practice; Group B: have engaged in social practice, at least one type)

X: control variables, including: gender, grade, discipline, institute type, first generation, social desirability

The results of the regression are shown in Table 1. Group B (have engaged in social practice) has a statistically significant higher score than Group A (haven’t engaged in social practice) in all kinds of learning outcomes (Knowledge, Skill, and Value). This means engaging in social practice may improve student learning outcomes. Specifically, among the four types of skills, engaging in social practice enhances leadership and collaboration skill more than other skills.

TABLE 1

The general impact of social practice on student learning outcomes (N=79,120)

NOTES: Group A represents students who haven’t engaged in social practice, Group B represents students who have engaged in social practice; B-A means comparing Group B with Group A; β means the coefficient of regression; standard deviations (SD) are in parentheses; * p<0.1 ** p<0.05 *** p<0.01

4.6 The Impacts of Different Social Practice Engagement Levels on Student Learning Outcomes

As illustrated above, the author classified the engagement in social practice into three levels:

• Level 1-Low Engaged: having engaged in one type of social practice;

• Level 2-Medium Engaged: having engaged in two types of social practice;

• Level 3-High Engaged: having engaged in all three types of social practice defined in this paper.

In this section, it intends to compare the impacts of different engagement levels of social practice on learning outcomes. The regression equation is shown as (3), and the results are shown in Table 2.

Outcomes_i = β₀ + β₁ SP_i + β₂ X_i + ε_i ……………………… (3)

Outcomes: college student learning outcomes

SP: social practice (three groups, Group A: have engaged in one type of social practice, Group B: have engaged in two types of social practice, Group C: have engaged in all three types of social practice)

X: control variables, including: gender, grade, discipline, institute type, first generation, social desirability

TABLE 2

The impacts of different social practice engagement levels on student learning outcomes (N=31,575)

NOTES: Group A represents students who have engaged in one type of social practice (Level 1), Group B represents students who have engaged in two types of social practice (Level 2), Group C represents students who have engaged in all three types of social practice (Level 3); B-A (or C-A) means comparing Group B with Group A (or Group C with Group A); β means the coefficient of regression; standard deviations (SD) are in parentheses; * p<0.1 ** p<0.05 *** p<0.01

Group A, B, and C represent engagement Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3, respectively (Table 2). It is clear that higher level of engagement in social practice is correlated to higher gains of learning outcomes (the scores of learning outcomes of group B, C are statistically significant higher than group A, and the coefficients of C-A is higher than B-A).

It shows that: on the one hand, engaging in social practice enhances student learning outcomes; on the other hand, higher level of engagement brings about a higher gain in learning outcomes. Therefore, it is better for the improvement of learning outcomes for students to engage in all three types of social practice.

4.7 The Impacts of Different Types of Social Practice on Student Learning Outcomes

As illustrated above, different types of social practice may include different assignments, challenges, problems, and therefore may have different impacts on student learning outcomes. In this section, the paper intends to explore the different impacts of ASP, PSP, and SSP.

4.8 The Impact of ASP on student Learning Outcomes

Outcomes_i = β₀+ β₁ASP_i + β₂X_i + ε_i …………………… (4)

Outcomes: college student learning outcomes

ASP: academic social practice (two groups, Group A: haven’t engaged in ASP, Group B: have engaged in ASP )

X: control variables, including: gender, grade, discipline, institute type, first generation, social desirability

The regression equation is shown as (4) and the results are shown in Table 3. The results show that engaging in ASP has a statistically significant improvement for student learning outcomes (the score of all kinds of learning outcomes of group B are statistically significant higher than group A). Among the four types of skills, engaging in ASP enhances the leadership and collaboration skill most.

TABLE 3

The impact of ASP on student learning outcomes (N=43,140)

NOTES: Group A represents students who haven’t engaged in ASP, Group B represents students who have engaged in ASP; B-A means comparing Group B with Group A; β means the coefficient of regression; standard deviations (SD) are in parentheses; * p<0.1 ** p<0.05 *** p<0.01

4.9 The Impact of PSP on Student Learning Outcomes

Outcomes_i = β₀+ β₁PSP_i + β₂X_i + ε_i ………………… (5)

Outcomes: college student learning outcomes

PSP: professional social practice (two groups, Group A: haven’t engaged in PSP, Group B: have engaged in PSP )

X: control variables, including: gender, grade, discipline, institute type, first generation, social desirability

The regression equation is shown as (5) and the results are shown in Table 4. The results show that engaging in PSP has a statistically significant improvement for student learning outcomes (the score of all kinds of learning outcomes of group B are statistically significant higher than group A). Different from ASP however, engaging in PSP enhances the communication and expression skill most. It might be inferred that PSP is different from ASP. The assignments in PSP include more professional knowledge and skills that focus on particular disciplines or fields, therefore, PSP may help to improve students’ professional knowledge and skills more than other skills.

TABLE 4

The impact of PSP on student learning outcomes (N=43,140)

NOTES: Group A represents students who haven’t engaged in PSP, Group B represents students who have engaged in PSP; B-A means comparing Group B with Group A; β means the coefficient of regression; standard deviations (SD) are in parentheses; * p<0.1 ** p<0.05 *** p<0.01

4.10 The Impact of SSP on Student Learning Outcomes

Outcomes_i = β₀+ β₁SSP_i + β₂X_i + ε_i ………………………(6)

Outcomes: college student learning outcomes

SSP: service social practice (two groups, Group A: haven’t engaged in SSP, Group B: have engaged in SSP )

X: control variables, including: gender, grade, discipline, institute type, first generation, social desirability

The regression equation is shown as (6) and the results are shown in Table 5. The results show that engaging in SSP has a statistically significant improvement of student learning outcomes (the score of all kinds of learning outcomes of group B are statistically significant higher than group A). Like ASP and different from PSP, among the four types of skills, engaging in SSP enhances the leadership and collaboration skill most.

TABLE 5

The impact of SSP on student learning outcomes (N=43,140)

NOTES: Group A represents students who haven’t engaged in SSP, Group B represents students who have engaged in SSP; B-A means comparing Group B with Group A; β means the coefficient of regression; standard deviations (SD) are in parentheses; * p<0.1 ** p<0.05 *** p<0.01

5 Conclusion and Discussion

5.1 Features of the Participants of Social Practice

As illustrated in this paper, social practice is a “popular” educational activity among college students in China: most of college students (70.42%) have engaged in social practice, a part of them (26.74%) have engaged all three types of social practice defined in this paper; among the students who haven’t engaged in any social practice by the time when they participated in this investigation, most of them (88.72%) expressed their intention to engage in social practice during their college time; therefore, in total, 70.42% have engaged and 26.24% intend to engage before graduating; that means 96.66% college student have engaged or intend to engage in social practice. These numbers show students’ interest and enthusiasm in social practice. It is important to mention that although students are encouraged to participate in social practice, but social practice is not a compulsory course or activity in every college or university in China (social practice engagement may be required in some colleges or universities and some majors).

Among three types of social practice, ASP and PSP are comparatively more popular: data show that the percentage of engagement in ASP is the highest, but when including the students who intend to engage in social practice, then PSP seems more popular than ASP or SSP. SSP is the least popular among these three types of social practice.

5.2 Summaries of the Impacts of Social Practice

Data show that engaging in social practice enhances college student learning outcomes (including knowledge acquisition, self-awareness and values, and the skills of communication and expression, quantitative analysis, leadership and collaboration, and critical thinking.)

Generally, engaging in social practice enhances the leadership and collaboration skill the most. Specifically, among the three types of social practice, ASP and SSP enhance the leadership and collaboration skill more than other skills, but PSP enhances the communication and expression skill the most. It is clear that engaging in different social practice may bring different gains.

Among three levels of engagement of social practice, higher engagement level means more gains of learning outcomes. Therefore, it is more beneficial for college students to engage in more types of social practice.

5.3 Some Implications from Qualitative Materials

Besides the quantitative data analysis, the author conducted some semi-structured interviews of seven graduate students in a university in China. The interviewees all had engaged in social practice during their undergraduate period, when reflecting on their experiences of social practice, they all have a holistic and clear idea about their experiences of social practice. The qualitative materials collected in the interviews provide us with some deeper understanding of social practice and its’ impact on learning outcomes.

All of the interviewees said that engaging in social practice brought an improvement of their learning outcomes: they have gained a lot from social practice, include skills, friendships, self-awareness, planning for their further learning and career, and so forth; and the experience of social practice has even changed their lives. Student C said that engaging in social practice helped her make some new friends who majored in different fields, and social practice pushed her to do presentations in front of a crowd of people. That experience improved her public speaking skill and self-confidence. Student E said that she had engaged in a social investigation (ASP) in the first summer holiday in college, and that experience improved her courage to deal with problems and challenges, and also helped her make some new friends. Student E published a paper at the end of that social practice, and this gave her the courage to do research. At some extent, she chose to be a graduate student related to the experience in social practice. In student E’s experience of social practice, it might be inferred that social practice may impact participants’ career planning and change their lives. Student B said that her experience of an internship (PSP) in a primary school as a “teacher” expanded her horizon about the society. In that social practice, student B had a direct connection with the poor families, whose social class she has never contacted before. This experience gave her a deeper understanding about students and their families, their learning and development. Student G said that the most important gains of engaging in social practice are that it helps to understand more about ourselves, understand what we really like and what we don’ like. After trying many activities in social practice, student G said, we may find our interests and that may help us set a clear goal for our learning and career. Student G also said that engaging in social practice, at some extent, impacted her decision to go further to graduate study. The interviews show that participating in social practice may bring many more leaning outcomes that are difficult to be measure (such as friendship), and some of the students’ gains in social practice may only become visible a long period later.

The reasons why social practice helps to enhance student learning outcomes are complex. However, some facts are worth considering. In the interview, almost all of the interviewees said that engaging in social practice may confront numerous assignments, problems, challenges that you may or may not be conscious of before engaging. The numerous practical activities, assignments, collaborations, communications, interactions, questions, problems, and challenges in social practice, bring about numerous educational stimuli to the participants. These educational stimuli drive the students engaging in social practice to apply their knowledge, skills, etc., to dealing with the problems and challenges. And their skills might be trained, their horizons might be expanded, their values might be renewed in this process. Furthermore, they may learn some new knowledge and gain some unforgettable experiences when engaging in social practice. As student G said in the interview:

we may forget about the knowledge that we learned in classroom after graduation, but we may still remember the social practice experience that we had during our college time; and this memory may last as long as our lifetime.

5.4 The Implications of This Paper to the Practice

In the last fifteen years, China had experienced a rapid growth in higher education, particularly the scale growth. In 2015, the total enrollments of China’s higher education are more than 37 million; China has the biggest higher education (the scale of enrollments) in the world. 17 However, the quality of higher education is still comparatively low when compared with the developed countries. Therefore, “quality improvement” has become one of the key words in China’s next strategy of higher education development. Given this background, the improvement of college student learning outcomes is definitely one of the focuses. The research findings in this paper, generally, show the educational meaning and value of social practice as an important educational activity to enhance college student learning outcomes, and therefore, enhance the quality of higher education. Therefore, social practice, as a series of meaningful, valuable, influential and popular educational activities, is worth to be recommended strongly and taken into practice in all the colleges and universities.

When it comes to the practice of social practice in higher education institutions, the author suggests that: a) the administrators, teachers and students in colleges and universities should be aware of the value of social practice in improving student learning and development (and in improving the quality of higher education); there are many more values of social practice that are difficult to measure, and many more values of social practice that cannot be presented immediately, in that it may only take effect when students graduate from college or in later years in their careers; b) colleges and universities should construct a close connection between social practice and classroom learning, course taking, and knowledge acquiring; at present, social practice is comparatively isolated from classroom learning, teachers should guide students to reflect on their social practice experiences and connect that experiences with their course learning, which may enlarge the values of social practice further; c) every student should engage in at least one social practice during their college time, and it is better to engage in all three types of social practice, because higher engagement level means more gains in learning outcomes, and personal, professional and academic development; d) the institutionalization of social practice in college and universities should be taken into account; it may be beneficial to construct a stable system for social practice: provide funds, trainings, and guidance, and design courses, assessments, awards for the participants of social practice, so that the students might be encouraged and supported to engage in social practice; making social practice to be a compulsory activity for applying for baccalaureate might be also an effective policy; however, institutionalization should be careful, since when it becomes a compulsory activity, the quality of social practice may decline.

Social practice is valuable in improving student learning outcomes. However, it relies on students’ and colleges’ high level of engagement. It means that the investments of colleges’ resources, students’ time and energy, at some extent, are the core factors that make social practice valuable, meaningful and influential in improving college student learning outcomes, and help to enhance student learning and development; and therefore, improve the quality of higher education.

5.5 Summaries of This Research and Suggestions for the Future Researches

This paper explored the features of the participants of social practice, and the impacts of engaging in social practice on college student learning outcomes. Due to the “special” features of social practice (“outdoor-oriented” and “practice-oriented”), it may bring about a forgettable experience for the students.

Different types of social practice may provide different educational stimulus to students and may have different impacts on student learning outcomes, therefore this paper classified social practice into three types: ASP (Academic Social Practice), PSP (Professional Social Practice), and SSP (Service Social Practice). Furthermore, different levels of engagement in social practice may also bring about different impacts on student learning outcomes, therefore, this paper defined three levels of engagement: Level 1-Low Engaged (having engaged in one type of social practice), Level 2-Medium Engaged (having engaged in two types of social practice), and Level 3-High Engaged (having engaged in all three types of social practice). This paper explored the impacts of different types of social practice and different levels of engagement of social practice on college student learning outcomes. The classifications of social practice and its’ engagement levels may bring about some enlightenment for future researches.

In the future researches in this field, more types of social practice, more kinds of learning outcomes, and more qualitative materials should be taken into account, in order to explore the impact of social practice deeply.