Int. j. econ. manag. soc. sci., Vol(4), No (2), February, 2015. pp.

248-251

TI Journals

International Journal of Economy, Management and Social Sciences

www.tijournals.com

ISSN:
2306-7276

Copyright 2015. All rights reserved for TI Journals.

Representation of Women Experiences in the Iran National Skills

Competition
Abbas Karimi *
Department of Pedagogical Sciences & Entrepreneurship, Instructor Training Center-IRAN Technical and Vocational Training Organization (ITC-TVTO), Karaj,
Iran.

Ali Tavakoli Golpayegani

Iran Technical Delegate in World Skills Competition and Assistant professor of Department of Biomedical Engineering, Standard Research Institute, Karaj, Iran.

Reza Javid
Master Trainer, Department of Training Sciences & Entrepreneurship, ITC, Karaj, Iran
*Corresponding author: abbaskarimi@ut.ac.ir

Keywords

Abstract

Instructor Training Center (ITC)

women experience
Iran National Skills Competition (Iran NSC)
Bioskill

This paper is a narrative representation of women participating in Iran National Skills Competition (Iran
NSC). In other words, cognition and understanding of women's experience about skills and technical and
vocational training has been qualitatively studied through this research. It was limited to the 14th NSC in
2013 In terms of time, and to the Iran Instructor Training Center (ITC, Karaj) in terms of place. The study
population includes all female experts from all over the Iran participating 14th NSC. 30 persons (about
70%) was the sample. In this qualitative research, a combination of methods such as; participatory
observation, in- depth interview, narration and literature review were used for data gathering. The results of
data analysis shows that despite ITCs efforts and womens enthusiasm for this field; skill and bio- skill
have not been yet completely institutionalized in daily life structure of women as a desirable platform to
show abilities and talents. Finally, some applied recommendations have been proposed aiming to improve
mechanisms of NSC planning and implementation with focus on ITC and NSC secretariat.

1.

Introduction

Iran National Skills Competition (Iran NSC) exemplifies the most important skill demonstration event in the country, in deed this festival
centering on skilled and pragmatic aspects of individuals, could reliably determines effective policies of Iran Technical and Vocational Training
Organization (Iran TVTO) [1], [2]. Two aspects of research and report activities regarding NSC have been taken into account so far. First
general reports and media and journalistic point of view. A various range of activities have been performed in this phase by Iran TVTO and mass
media. Besides advertising and describing competition events in newspapers and reports, producing documentary films and filing various radio
and television reports on such events indicate how news and information of competition delivered into society and potential audiences. In
addition to representing NSC in news and Media, Iran TVTO plays an important role in creating and collecting pure knowledge relevant to
NSCs by developing research plans. In all of above mentioned phases, they are policy-makers and planners of Iran TVTO who would understand
the issue and necessity of it. The lack of experiencers and experts narration, as one of the most important participants in the event, has been
always felt in research projects. So, the authors hope that reproducing skill competitions narrative, from womens experience point of view will
be starting point to get into such surveys.
Many scholars have done researches on NSC reflecting Iran TVTOs policy-makers and administrators point of views and feedbacks, yet there
are few specific studies performed based on views of those who were at the core of experiencing events of skill competition. Additionally, in
most studies conducted inside and outside of Iran TVTO, it seemed that administrators and participants mainly focused on quantitative research
methods and cultural, conceptual and qualitative aspects of such social happenings are neglected. So, there has been no qualitative study
performed to redefine a precise concept of NSC events and get it across to mind of different age and sex groups in form of text and narration. It
is obvious that administrators and policy-makers of NSC need to explore the social and cultural concept (sense mining) of this event in order to
boost its effectiveness. On the other hand, text representing NSC experiences has not been properly introduced to academic and cultural
community of Iran as an exhilarative and unique experience.
Another matter is that women have their own specific experience as those who have taken part in NSC regularly. Given the fact that delivering
flawless and quick performance by using tools is essential in such skills competition, it is useful and effective to represent womens skill
experience and understand how they explore concept of various contests in the skills competition in order to do more exhaustive and realistic
planning for achieving Iran TVTOs goals. Women, as the major messengers of cultural and social norms (i.e. those who participate in formal
and informal social networks) could narrate their own version of events which, in fact shows spreading of vocational training and skill plans and
ideas to very depth of everyday life.
Therefore, considering the importance and necessity of the subject, it is essential to look at NSC through experiencers eyes and those who
closely have been associated and connected with NSC in a specific period. The lack of respondents and experiencers comments and views have
been always felt to represent the direct experience they got from such happening. Importance and necessity of the subject led to contemplate
reproducing NSC events from the perspective of minorities (women) who personally experienced such happening. Looking at the history and
background of the researches, it is an uncharted and novel subject to select research topic and methodology. To understand and perceive
subjective experience of participants in competitions, we need to take their perspective and being sympathetic to them and their wide
experiences. And therefore discovering and perceiving subjective knowledge or intersubjective world of NSC could represent hidden, unknown
dimensions to Iran TVTOs top managers, planners and administrators for staging future skill competition and be well prepared for participating
in the World Skills Competition. styles are provided. The formatter will need to create these components, incorporating the applicable criteria
that follow.

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Representation of Women Experiences in the Iran National Skills Competition

International Journal of Economy, Management and Social Sciences Vol(4), No (2), February, 2015.

2.

Methodology

Selecting qualitative method of research over quantitative one suggests an approach to social world and understanding social phenomena. The
way qualitative method deals with subject matter, collects data and draws conclusion make it an important method in the field of human and
social sciences. Qualitative research is any sort of research which arrives at conclusion without application of statistical or quantification
methods [3].
Ethnology, ethnomethodology and ethnography are all deeply rooted in anthropology. Anthropology has modified views and opinions on human
being as the subject matter of research. Appreciating the importance of interrelationships, making sense and re-making sense of humans world,
companionship, concordance and participation of researchers in dealing with many subjects, mutual concern between researcher and subject
matter all describe unique characteristics of qualitative research. Furthermore, application of qualitative methods in social surveys has become
necessary more than before when considering overlooked spheres like minority group and women.
It is possible to represent experience of those getting involved in respective event through reproduction of narration. In a narrative structure,
time, place, and human factors are studied by researcher along a same continuum. Narration is a way of reiterating and reproducing every day
experiences in a language that is understandable for everyone. Narrative interview is generally a type of event-survey related to an especial issue.
According to Schulze, these narratives present structures of life process [4].
Individuals always create meaningful narratives and stories to talk about their experiences and ideas; something, in form of experiences and
memories of the past, which is given special attention in human sciences as one of the most important source of learning. And this meaningful
narrative structure guides daily life of a person, social life of a group and last but not the least national culture of a country. Narrative helps
Individuals to organize their experiences properly and maintain them in their human and subjective archive. Reproduction of story is using those
valuable experiences and facilitating process of their representation to public culture and doing social planning. Making a connection between
personal narratives and public, collective narratives provides us with deeper understanding, perception and insight, in addition to raise awareness
of reality among us as well as social and cultural policy-makers, and also comes to help us to determine and discover interpersonal relationships
considerably. Therefore, narrative is an intersubjective production which gives to life, experience and phenomena an intended meaning [5]. To
put it simply, to bridge the gap between experience and perception, applied science and cultural, social understanding of those sciences are most
important objectives of reproducing story of an event like NSC.
Narrative, as an important research methodology in human and social sciences, has grabbed meticulous attention of scholars over the recent
years. Most of current issues and discussions raised in human sciences have been derived from narrations and stories, which people said about
their everyday experiences, by anthropologists [6].
To define narrative, we could consider a chain or phenomenon which affects human beings in different time and place and shapes their attitude
and lifestyle. Different aspects of narrative reproduction are important, namely: cognitive, technical, sociological, biological and existential.
How our character shaped and perception about our abilities created, how we grow and progress, how we learn different jobs and skills over a
fixed period are subjects of narrative reproduction regarding existential, biological and technical aspects respectively. To put it more simply,
narrative forms and styles of NSC are different sorts of technical and skilled abilities achieving through long and short term experiences in
different sections of Iran TVTO to be later demonstrated in NSC. So we can understand narrative reproduction of NSC as a form of conceptual
and subjective reaction of participants to scheduling and implementation of such events as well as effects of organizational planning in general.
In brief, skill is vital to understand such experience. It is skill which must create a new person and experience before, during or after the
competition. The aim is may be narration of a historical course of such competition and then going beyond it. And that is the aim being pursed in
Iran TVTOs polices [7]. Narratives are not only based on describing how an event or phenomena was, is or will be happened; but we aim at
creating a new person and a new experience through narrative reproduction [8]. We are going to obtain deeper understanding of senses and
atmospheres made in innermost layers of competition events which are mostly out of top managers and administrators reach.
In this qualitative research, different method of collecting data such as participatory observation, in-depth interviews, narration and literature
review adapted to reproduce a narrative of 14th NSC based on experiences of women participating in the event. Participatory observation is the
central pillar of qualitative research. As the name of this method suggests, it involves researcher to be a member of research population.
Participating and interfering in the research population allows researcher possibility of seeing, hearing and experiencing reality. It would be ideal
if the researcher spends a lot of time and place of the research to learn something about individuals everyday life [9]. The other method is indepth interviews that are increasingly used in qualitative researches. It is described as purpose- focused conversation [10]. Regarding in-depth
interviews conducted to collect great deal of data required for this research, it should be noted that though the researcher asked questions for a
particular purpose, allowed interviewees feel free in their expression and speech. Since the goal of such interview is to penetrate into profound
insight of respondent and experiencer to recognize the conceptual structure of the subject under study out of concept formation of respondent.
Concerning research questions, interviewee was likely to face structured questions which can also be called organized questions, but it did not
mean to impose the rigid structure on mental understanding of experiencer.
In this study, the authors combine results of in-depth interview with observing individuals in real location to get greater insight about the subject
matter. Part of field observations taken into account to complete data collection as authors have several years of experience in launching NSCs.
About method of performing interview, interviewer focused on further hearing and listening to information of NSCs experiencers.
The research was limited to the 14th NSC in 2013 in terms of time, and to the Iran Instructor Training Center & Technical and Vocational
Researches (ITC, Karaj, Iran) in terms of place. The study population includes all female experts from all over the Iran participating 14th NSC.
30 persons (about 70%) were selected as the sample of the study. Data required for the research was collected from experiencers of the event by
using different audiovisual equipment such as recorder and camera. The methods, as mentioned before, included performing in-depth interviews
with participants in NSC. Interviews were transcribed and typed after finishing the work of recording interview (25 hours). Then interviews were
edited to make the information in text coherent and well-ordered. The purpose of doing interviews and then transcribing them was to prepare and
draw up a narrative report on skill demonstration events to highlight three factors, namely; temporal/ time, spatial/ place and human. Respondent
background in vocational training in general and NSC in particular is investigated by temporal/ time factor. The past, present and future from the
respondents and experiencers point of view could show a chronological sequence of their intellectual movement and course of action. Talking
about spatial or place factor, environmental context in which vocational training provided and competition stage i.e. ITC was the subject of
discussion and interview. And finally creating human experiences in such spatial-temporal contexts were set as the goal of reproducing NSC
events.

3.

Findings

Based on results achieved through interviews, finding about each factor (time, place, and human) are as follows.

Abbas Karimi *, Ali Tavakoli Golpayegani , Reza Javid

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International Journal of Economy, Management and Social Sciences Vol(4), No (2), February, 2015.

3.1 Time Factor (Narration of Life, Skill and Competitions)

If we look at narration as contributing factor in order to construct and reconstruct life of every single individual; and skill as central point
contributing to self-understanding as well as understanding of organization (Iran TVTO) and competition, representation will spontaneously
goes beyond only narrating time and place of competition. Then it will be as a policy of bioskill. In performing interviews and designing their
questions, the authors tried to take these backgrounds and foregrounds into account. Therefore, the first and most important thing was encounter
between clients (people outside Iran TVTO) and skills (applied sciences). In other word, we want to know how the first encounter between
individuals and skilled-based dialogue took place in social and family conditions. What sort of events did catch clients attention to skilled and
applied sciences? Indeed, it examines how skill became an issue in peoples life (bioskill). It seems that personal interests and needs played an
important role in attracting women to skilled and technical sciences.
3.2 Human Factor (Women and NSC)
Women are the focal point of this research as they constitute a significant part of the skilled and social workforce. Simply put, women and
skill made our research context within which we tried to gain empirical knowledge of different phenomena. Experience of human factor
(women) and organizational factor (Iran TVTO) cause these phenomena to be occurred and make sense of them in each of issues mentioned
above. In fact, the authors think about NSC event as a shared experience with involved planners, respondents and participants in a same
experience. Accordingly, we focus on subjective concept formulated by women participating in NSC based on planning, policy making, and
implementation of competitions.
Scholars stated that personal experience is consciousness and perception that emerges from personal and self-participation in events. To
comprehend the personal experience, they focus further on the event of lives, feeling about that event and interpretation of it [11]. Furthermore,
NSC could be considered as construct and environment in which other experiences also could be described. Therefore we could identify relative
strengths and weaknesses in making policy and holding NSC through understanding the structure of shared experience during competitions in
which women get involved. To perceive this shared experience correctly, it requires to bridge between Iran TVTOs perception from individuals
and facilities, and subjective perception of individuals or target audiences from Iran TVTOs policies and functions. In other words, it involves
paying careful attention to stories made up by executives and participants about their shared experiences; only a few number of people write
such experiences down or retell them. What comes out of such experience or story telling is shared experience or collaborative story which could
be a mutually constructed story created out of the lives of both researcher and participant and the agenda for future planning, and through which
they discover potential of each other [12].
In this regard, it seems that Iran TVTO in general and NSC in particular succeeded in making positive changes in both social and cultural
attitudes toward women training and providing them with ideal training environment. The great number of entities is in charge of implementing
job/ skills training program have made fundamental changes in culture and economy of developed countries.
Trainers and skills training institutions play significant role in facilitating the process of employing women in new jobs; so they must be given
priority as the key factor to make change in society. Youngsters who select an unconventional occupation usually need encouraging trainers (or
institutions) to identify those jobs requirements for them. Skills training institutions play an important role to provide men and women with job
opportunities [13]. Therefore, it could be claimed that NSC open the door of skills training institution to society and indeed, it is the practice of
implementing professional/ vocational changes in the national level.
3.3 Place/ Spatial Factor (ITC and NSC)
The function of institutions and organizations responsible for skill training could not be ignored because in the new era, they are the main and
true environment wherein skilled workforce trained and provided to the society. In other words, these institutions can play the role of skill
messenger and facilitator in two ways. First, such entities remove individuals from conventional society with non-skilled backgrounds and
presumptions and then instruct them new criteria and values in their own environment. Then, these new standards and values lead to new
lifestyle in which skill is the essence and basis of it. Second, these institutions and organizations help individuals possessing skills required to
occupy positions in manufacturers and other organizations. The efficiency of these institutions certainly will make mental and practical
integration of individuals in economic, social and cultural systems more conveniently. These facts give prominence to the function of Iran NSC
secretariat and ITC (spatial factors) which are the main units holding skill competitions. As mentioned before, time and place, or creating
environment for training skills, play key role in NSC experience. In fact, creating new environment along with different mechanism and plans
would shape interests and attitudes of involved persons and organize their experience. Consequently, understanding such environment is pending
on understanding of ITCs functions from their clients point of view. Role of ITC, as one the NSC environments, is acknowledge by large
number of people familiarized with Iran TVTO [14]. Respondents view shows the brand- type and crucial role of ITC in the field of skills
competition. As a national and international center bringing skills training up for discussion, needs to be provided with more cultural background
knowledge. Although relatively large sections of society got familiar with ITC through promoting discussions about skills training, ITC still
needs to be further introduced to society as the main symbol of NSC. Another problem raised during NSC was a contrast between family lives of
some participants and professional situation of competition. It seems that women still face a lot of problems institutionalizing professional
situations and focusing on the NSC. Of course, this problem is not necessarily a function of how NCS conducted and ITC managed and
administrated. Additionally, many people experience such encounter between family and (administrative, professional) society in most of
professional and administrative events. And as the result, being apart from family during competition poses problems for large number of
participant and women in particular. Therefore, given cultural and psychological issues related to professions and specific situation of NSC, it
would be useful to hold consulting and competition preparation courses by regional Iran TVTO to mitigate such problems and avoid alienation
and homesickness as well as better staging NSC.

4.

Conclusion and recommendation

Generally we could analyze the effect of NSC from different dimensions. There are neglected aspects of NSC needs to be further explored in
addition to its apparent and physical effects on attitude of respondents. To grasp and frame the concept of such environment, it is required to
look at two general perspectives more than any others, namely: I. planning and policy-making, II. The target groups of NSC. The effects of
planning, time and place of NSC on experience of participants have been examined in this research through gender factor (women). Women
Narratives created during competition through in-depth qualitative interviews were the basis for understanding their attitudes at the time of NSC.
At the end, women experience of NSC could be accounted as a unique experience which attracts more enthusiasts and followers to itself. Lots of
positive and negative aspects of such experience have been scrutinized through participants perspective and developed into form of a narrativelike structure in this research.
Temporal factor is key to understand NCSs narrative-like structure both at the beginning and during the course of competition. From this point
of view, many respondents have to participate in creating the future of NSC event through imagining the subject. To put it more simply,

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Representation of Women Experiences in the Iran National Skills Competition

International Journal of Economy, Management and Social Sciences Vol(4), No (2), February, 2015.

imagining favorable thing i.e. going beyond existing thing and its wants and needs is the goal of this temporal discussion about NSC. Narrative
thing tries to develop a unique and coherent structure to make a new history and identification for NSC by including three temporal structures
i.e., the past, the present and the future. That is, documenting the ongoing history of NSC by administrators, authorities and participants involved
in competition, we can make a precise identification and a true structure in mind of individuals about NSC and then explain more general
concept of it. A temporal structure of NSC could demonstrate all sufficiency and deficiency, facilities and hopes, existence and non-existence of
NSC in a conceptual framework. This research could herald beginning in stepping into this long road. Part of the work focusing on understating
personal feeling out of competition, this is not to assess the professional and skillful perception but to show individuals hopes and wishes during
the competition; despairs and frustrations could also be monitored as the negative aspects of such feeling.
At the final analysis, it could be claimed that NSC is yet to creep into very depth of teenagers and youngsters life. Several experts in NSC
indicated that they experienced the competition as a sudden and startling event, not as an anticipated platform to showcase their abilities and
talents. It is correct to say that skill and life skill, as a platform to demonstrate their talents and capacities, have not been completely known and
established in everyday life of teenagers and youngsters so far. It is worth pointing out that closer and more effective connection has been made
between skill matters and lifestyle of teenagers and youngsters through measures taken by administrators and planners especially in ITC over the
recent years. Skill tours, organized amid competition or other times to get high school and universitys students familiar with skill environment
in ITC, will show good example of such innovations. Moreover careful planning is needed to assess educational knowledge and skills as well as
spot and direct young talents to attending vocational training and taking part in NSC.
Part of results, that researchers achieved through analyzing questionnaires have been reported in the body of this papers and rest of it in the
conclusion. In other words, this paper must be taken as a whole to get the results of this research. The researchers also have full record of 25
hours of interviews available as the main reference of this study.
Following recommendations put forward based on the results of survey to be used by planners and policy-makers of NSC:
I.
II.
III.

To establish talent identification programs in all over the country in order to spot outstanding talents of youth and women interested in
skill training field.
To prepare incentive compensations plans and establish skill camps with cooperation of subsidiaries of Education Ministry in order to
identify best and interested ones in this field and introduce them to the Iran TVTO, and make skill tours and vocational training the
core of attention in such programs.
To create research groups and training groups in order to promote skills and applied science in public culture and routine life of
women and further introduction of NSC to the country.

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