Objectives　To learn the identification status for the practice teaching among the students majoring in preventive medicine in Jiangsu. Methods　832 students majoring in preventive medicine were randomly selected from 5 universities of Jiangsu province in clustering（Nanjing Medical University， South-East University， Suzhou University， Nantong University， Xuzhou Medical College）. They were investigated by the self-designed questionnaire about the recognition of significance and effect as well as the absent reasons for the discussion in class， research work and social practice. The data were calibrated and input into the database with Epidata 3.1， then were analyzed with SPSS 16.0. The identification status was described with constituent ratio， and the proportion of the students were analyzed with Chi-square test， in which it was recognize as of significant difference if the P value was less than 0.05. Results　It was thought by the students that the ways to increase the interest were research work（757students， 91.0%）， discussion in class（507， 60.9%） and social practice（360， 43.3%）， the ways to increase the ability were social practice（494， 59.4%）， research work（122， 14.7%） and discussion in class（109， 13.1%） successively. But the actual effective ways to increase their interest were social practice（360， 43.3%）， discussion in class（128， 15.4%） and research work（100，13.2%）， the effective ways to increase the ability were social practice（615， 73.9%）， research work（97，11.7%） and discussion in class（92， 11.1%） successively. Only 50.0% of the students agreed with the effect of social practice because they were unable to play a major role， while the recognition of the effect of class discussion and research was also low（less than 20.0%） among some students who were unwilling to participate in class discussion and research work because of their lack of confidence， actual interest or time. Conclusions　The identification rate is low among the students. It is suggested that the social practice should be based on the knowledge of the students and the class discussion or research work be designed or arranged carefully so that predicted goal can be achieved.