The effect of workshop training and instructional packages on students’ attitude and practical adherence to prayers in female students of Bandar Abbas universities in 2015

Background and Purpose of Study: All throughout history, worship and prayers have been the basis of influential religions in human life. Today, due to technological advancements in human communities, lack of morality is felt more than ever before. Therefore, enhancing the spirits for prayers seems to be undeniably essential.The females in addition to the role of social,have a key role in religious studies of their children . The present research aimed to determine the effect of workshop training and instructional packages on students’ attitude and practical adherence to prayers in female students of Bandar Abbas universities in 2015. Methodology: This research was conducted in a pre- and post-test on university students of Hormozgan province in 2015. The estimated sample size was 300. However, overall 100 subjects participated in this study. The data gathering instrument was a standardized questionnaire on attitude and adherence to prayers. This questionnaire was submitted to students in two phases, once before and once again after the intervention. The criteria of the inclusion was the absolute satisfaction of students in completing questionnaires before and after the workshops and participating in all workshops held during the study.The first intervention was to distribute cultural packages among the subjects. Workshops were held weekly in two sessions, totally 24 sessions, during three months. Descriptive and analytic statistics were used to analyze the data (paired-sample t-test, Pearson byproduct correlation coefficient) in SPSS, v-21. Findings: According to the results obtained from 100 participants, the mean score of adherence to prayers in the pre-test of medical university students was 55.15±19.29; it was 51.65±19.73 in Azad university, and 49.85±21.11 among other universities (Elmi-Karbordi, Farhangian, PNU, Fatemieh, etc.). The same score in the post-test was reported as 91.96±20.65, 16±22.77 and 85.16±20.90 in the afore-mentioned universities, respectively. The attitude and adherence to prayers before the introduction of instructional packages to students was 48% (poor) and 52% (moderate) which changed to 2% (poor) and 74% (moderate) and 24% (good) after the intervention. The results were indicative of the positive influence of instruction and instructional packages on university students’ attitude towards prayers (p˂.001). Conclusion: Holding workshops and distributing packages among university students managed to affect their attitude towards prayers. Therefore, it is suggested to continuously hold workshops and benefit from experienced professors in this realm so as to promote students’ adherence to prayers from good to very high.