On the morning of 28^th June, the graduate school of Xiamen University held a mobilization meeting and training session for the social practice of 2016’s short semester in the conference room 215 of Song’en building. There were nearly 60 representatives of the social practice teams which have won the funding attended the meeting. They are joined by the executive dean of graduate school Tao Tao, Prof. Zhu Dongliang of the Marxism school, Associate Professor Xu Lan of school of education and the deputy director of the academic affairs office of the graduate school. The meeting was presided by Xue Chenglong, deputy director of the academic affairs office of the graduate school.

At the beginning of the meeting, Prof. Tao Tao, executive dean of graduate school made a mobilization speech. Graduate school places great emphasis on the education and social practice work of the short semester. Since 2013, we have provided funding for colleges and graduate schools to invited over 400 renowned experts and scholars from home and abroad to give advanced lectures or seminars in our university and also for all kinds of social practice participated by 2000 graduate students. In 2016, reviewed by experts, graduate school chose and funded 29 outstanding teams from 50 social practice program. He pointed out that practice is the only path to truth, an important approach to train students’ creativity and ability, and an effective way for graduate students to deepen their understanding of the society and prepare for entering into the society. He encouraged graduate students to combine scientific research and social practice, to acquire new insights in the practice, conduct original research, find new question and look for new research direction. He hoped that through this training session, graduate students can further focus on the hot and central major issue concerning national policy and people’s well being, and improve the social value of their practice. In the end, he reminded the students to put safety as their first priority, to fully showcase their positive attitude as students of Xiamen University, to leave the school with a sense of commitment and strive to achieve.

Prof. Zhu Dongliang of the Marxism school made a special report themed as Guidelines of field research in qualitative research. With his own rich social research experience and thorough and vivid examples, he introduced the main points of implementation from preparation work to field research of the qualitative study, including how to choose the topic, design outlines, organize a team, select a partner, prepare tools, and observing and talking technique, etc. With regard to the social practice, Professor Zhu commented specifically on the program application form, in order to let students understand the drawbacks of their research designs and to encourage them to further improve their research project design.

Associate Professor Xu Lan of the graduate school of education made a report titled as Thinking on the point of social practice research. She systematically and carefully introduced the methodological framework of social science research. She shared her own field research experience with graduate students and talked about how to transform perceptual fact description to rational concept analysis through scientific data analysis and then illustrate and reveal the social structure and rules behind those facts. She gave specific guidelines on how to write social practice report, improve the research level of their research report, which will serve as excellent guidance for graduate students when they summarize their results after the social practice.

Xue Chenglong, deputy director of the academic affairs office of the graduate school, made a concluding remark. He said that the general requirements of the graduate education reform in our university is to place emphasis on “research”, and social practice is one of the important approaches to the scientific training of graduate students. He hoped that students can start the process immediately after the mobilization meeting and training session, improve their project plan, make thorough preparation and carefully complete the task of social practice. He expected them to turn in high-quality research report that reflect their research ability and competence. In the end, he wished all the graduate students go with hope, return with fruits.