Quran Literacy Barriers and Factors Affecting Students

Holy Quran is the greatest gift of God to mankind and is the most precious legacy of So¡ in order to govern a society guided by Quran and the teachings of Quran by life style based on it¡ it is necessary that academic community pays attention to Quran education on their pattern.
Aims: The aim of this study was to evaluate Quran literacy of the academic community. This study is intended to provide information to the student community planning principles for designing and implementing Quran based activities.
Material and This study was a descriptive survey. A researcher-made questionnaire with content validation was used to collect data. The population consisted of 840 students of Tabriz University of Medical Sciences. Descriptive statistics by SPSSS 11 software was used for data analysis.
Analysis of the findings indicated that 37.2% of the participants were male and 62.8% were females. Thirty percent were non-native students and 69.6% of them were natives. More than 80% of the participants had Quran literacy. The results showed no significant relationship between academic major (p>%94)¡ gender( p>%07 ) and familiarity with Quran and being native or non-native( p>%79) Individuals who had Tajvid voice and tone literacy with 35.5%¡ common meanings and interpretations with 23.1%¡ translation with 12.9%¡ sound and tone with 13.4% and Tajvid with 1.5%¡ respectively. Determinants affecting on Quran literacy includes father’s job¡ school education¡ high interest in Quran education and family members’ familiarity with Quran. The most frequent obstacle include: educational priorities¡ lack of time¡ apathy and no interest in Quran.
Since Quran is for everyone and Quran activities are distributed among different academic majors¡ no significant relationship was found between gender (p>%07)¡ academic major (p>%94) and being native or non-native (p>%79). As a result¡ paying attention to Quran verses requires specific planning and different educational methods can be applied such as voice¡ tone¡ interpretation. Furthermore¡ using teachers and experts provide better conditions to accomplish it.
Implication for health policy / research and medical education: Helping promote Quran literacy of medical universities’ students in order to introduce further reference to the Islamic lifestyle¡ through¡ programming in accordance with scientific and cultural needs and characteristics of the students.