Life Skill Training in Technical and Vocational Education Training High Schools in Iran

Abstract

The current study sought to determine to what extent Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) textbooks in Iran incorporate the 10 basic life skills recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) and how this varies across the three dimensions of competency (knowledge, skill, and attitude). This investigation examined the content of textbooks in TVET of Iran based on the 10 basic life skills recommended by the WHO (i.e., problem-solving, critical thinking, effective communication skills, decisionmaking, creative thinking, interpersonal relationship skills, self-awareness building skills, empathy, coping with stress and coping with emotions). Employing a multi-method approach, the current research utilized documentary research to extract themes, the Delphi method to prioritize the themes, and content analysis through Shannon’s entropy method to examine the themes about life skills. The qualitative step involved documentary analysis and the Delphi method, where experts reviewed frameworks and selected the WHO framework for analysis. The quantitative step involved using Shannon’s entropy method for data analysis to measure the amount of uncertainty or randomness in the data. The Delphi method was employed to gather expert opinions and reach a consensus on the current implementation of life skills in the textbooks. Shannon’s entropy measure was used as an information index weight in ranking methods considering its ability to quantify uncertainty and probability. The results showed that at the level of knowledge, the highest degree of attention was paid to problem-solving (16.9%), while coping with stress and self-awareness received the least attention (2.8%). Problem-solving (17.3%), again, received the most attention at the skill level, while coping with stress received the least (3.4%). The most emphasis was allocated to critical thinking (16.1%) at the attitude level, whereas coping with stress, self-awareness, and empathy received the least (6%). The level of knowledge was determined to have included more examples of life skills than the other two levels. In general, it can be argued that intraindividual skills such as self-awareness and coping with emotions have received less attention in textbooks. However, regulatory, and personal skills, which are characterized as problem-solving and critical thinking, have received more attention. In addition, the caveat that life skills with higher frequency in the TVET textbooks may not always have larger information index and importance degrees, should be kept in mind. The obtained results can be employed by curricula planners to rectify and revise the imbalance between various life skills as manifested in the TVET curricula.