Understanding the Meaning of Prayer as a Predictor of Prayer Awareness among Junior High School Students
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.26740/jrpd.v12n3.p390-404Keywords:
Prayer Awareness, Understanding Of Prayer Meaning, Islamic Religious Education, Junior High School, Simple Linear RegressionAbstract
Prayer (salat) is an obligatory practice for Muslim adolescents, yet knowing how to pray does not always lead to self-directed performance. This study examined whether understanding of prayer meaning is associated with prayer awareness among seventh-grade students at Al Hikmah Junior High School Surabaya, Indonesia. A quantitative correlational design with purposive sampling was employed, involving one of the five seventh-grade classes. Of the 23 students enrolled in the selected class, 21 completed an expert-validated 10-item objective test of prayer meaning (0–100) and a 16-item four-point Likert questionnaire of prayer awareness (16–64). Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, Shapiro–Wilk and linearity tests, and simple linear regression. Understanding of prayer meaning (M = 75.24, SD = 15.37) and prayer awareness (M = 42.48, SD = 7.01; 66.37%) were both in the high category. Residuals were normally distributed (p = .214), and understanding of prayer meaning was a statistically significant positive predictor of prayer awareness (B = 0.263, t = 2.836, p = .010, R² = .298; approximate 95% CI of B [0.07, 0.46]). The model accounted for 29.8% of the variance in prayer awareness, while the remaining 70.2% was not explained by the model. In conclusion, meaning-oriented Islamic Religious Education may support prayer awareness. However, the findings are limited to one purposively selected class and require further examination involving larger and more varied samples.
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