Development of a Conceptual Model for Female Students' Skills Training in Iranian Universities

The increase in the number of female graduates in recent years, the challenge of women's willingness to enter the job market and lack of job opportunities have highlighted the need to pay attention to skills training during the years of college education. The purpose of this study was to develop a conceptual model for the skills training of female students of Iranian universities based on the collective life experience of the experts in the field under study. This is a qualitative study carried out using a strategy based on grounded theory. The research data were collected through the purposeful sampling method, and the instrument was a semi-structured interview conducted with 20 university professors, entrepreneurs and female graduates. The collected data were analyzed using Nvivo qualitative software. The results of the data analysis consist of 16 general categories that fall within the paradigmatic model in the form of causal conditions (policy making, human resources, cultural resources), strategies (process reforms in laws and policies, process reforms in human resources, process reforms in goals and activities, input reforms in laws and policy making, input reforms in human resources, input reforms in goals, structural reforms), context (political and legal, cultural and social, economic and technological factors), intervening conditions (micro and macro factors influencing skills training) and outcomes (modification in economic and social outputs, modification in cultural outputs), which affect the focal  phenomenon of female college students’ skills training  and development of skills training model.