The Effect of Quranic Stories on School-Age Children’s Self-Concept

Introduction: This study aimed to investigate the effect of Quranic stories on school-age children’s self-concept. Methods: This study was conducted as a pretest-posttest experimental design on 60 primary school children aged 7-12 years old in the city of Gonbad-e-Kavos in 2017, who were assigned to two groups of intervention and control through simple random sampling. The intervention group received eight sessions of storytelling (two sessions per week for 60 minutes). The participants completed the Piers-Harris Children's Self-Concept Scale twice. The data were analyzed though SPSS 16 and using independent t-test and paired t-test. Result: Based on the results, overall self-concept was 57.20 ± 4.57 in the control group and 62.63 + 3.85 in the intervention group, which shows a significant difference (p=0.001). Independent t-test showed no significant difference among the dimensions of self-concept scale in the intervention and control groups. However, independent t-test showed a significant difference between the mean of self-concept dimensions of school-age children in the intervention group and that in the control group. Also, there was no significant difference in the self-concept of children before and after the storytelling in the control group (p=0.31), but there was a significant difference in the children’ self-concept before and after the storytelling sessions in the intervention group (p <0.005). Conclusion: Self-concept increased in the group receiving Quranic storytelling. Therefore, it can be said that storytelling intervention influenced the level of self-concept of school-age children. The Quranic stories make children aware of themselves and lead to their good mental health.