The Effect of Murottal Al-Qur'an Therapy on Improving Study Concentration in College Students

This article presents a study regarding the effect of Al-Qur'an therapy on increasing concentration in psychology students. This research used a quantitative quasi-experimental design with pre-test post-test to measure the impact of Al-Qur'an therapy on concentration. The research results showed a significant increase in concentration in students after undergoing Al-Qur'an therapy. Statistical analysis revealed striking differences between the control and experimental groups. In addition, this research also highlights the impact of anxiety as a factor that influences individual concentration. This research aims to provide empirical evidence regarding the effectiveness of Al-Qur'an therapy in increasing concentration in students


Introduction
In a learning process, concentration is one of the factors that plays an important role so that the learning process can run optimally.According to Khotimah et al. (2021) stated that learning is an activity carried out by students and requires concentration in doing so.Concentration is a concentration of attention for a long period of time in activities, if it is related to the learning process, concentration is related to long concentration in the learning process (Febriani & Syafdaningsih, 2019).According to Dimyanti and Mudjiono (2009) learning concentration is an individual's ability to focus attention on lessons.The focus of attention is on the content of learning materials and the process of obtaining them.Concentration can also be interpreted as an aspect that can support an individual's fluency in carrying out activities, such as when students are carrying out learning activities.If an individual feels unable to concentrate on studying, it is very possible that he or she will not be able to experience the pleasure of the learning process he or she is undertaking (Khairinal et al., 2021).So important is concentration for students in learning, so concentration is a prerequisite for students to learn and succeed in achieving learning goals, namely producing students who excel.As a result of weak learning concentration can result in low learning achievement in students (Erwiza et al., 2019).
Some factors that affect learning concentration, one of which is derived from the motivation obtained by the individual, the desire for something, the pressure situation that can threaten the individual, the physical, psychological, emotional, experience, the level of intelligence possessed, the surrounding environment, interest in the lesson, feelings of anxiety, pressure, anger, worry, fear, hatred, the atmosphere of a noisy learning environment, being passive in learning and not having skills in good learning methods.Concentration can also be said to be a series of efforts to provide certain conditions so that individuals can have the desire to do something, if they do not like a lesson then students will try to deny or avoid these feelings of dislike.Concentration as the driving force of all student learning activities, ensuring the continuity of the learning process, providing direction for the learning process, enabling the achievement of learning subject objectives at school (Riinawati, 2021).Research conducted by Santoso (2019) found that an individual's learning concentration can be hindered by various factors such as lack of interest in the subject, difficulty of the material, dislike of the teacher, and an unconducive learning environment.Often, concentration problems while studying are experienced by students, especially when learning subjects with a high level of difficulty, such as exact sciences like mathematics or subjects in the social sciences group.In a book written by Harsono (2016), it is mentioned that a decrease in learning concentration can affect students' thinking and memory abilities.This results in a decline in the quality of interaction in the learning process, which can hinder students' understanding of the material.
In research conducted by Rahmawati et al. (2020) states that one effective behavioral therapy technique to reduce tension and anxiety is relaxation.Relaxation is a condition where the muscles return to a state of rest after contraction or stretching, or a state of low tension without strong emotions.The inability to relax makes it difficult for individuals to focus their attention.According to Abdurrahman (2018), the latest developments show that relaxation can be combined through dhikr and reading or listening to the Al-Qur'an.This method is known as religious relaxation, for example murattal of the Al-Qur'an.Murattal Al-Qur'an is the reading of Al-Qur'an verses by a qori' using good, correct and rhythmic recitation.Murattal Al-Qur'an audio therapy is the activity of reading Asmaul Husna or listening to a recording of the reading of Al-Qur'an verses sung by a qori' or Al-Qur'an reader in accordance with good and correct recitation.The melodious recitation of the Koran is able to provide a sense of comfort and calm to an individual who hears it.The melodious recitation of the Koran can provide a feeling of comfort and calm which affects brain performance and can prevent learning difficulties due to anxiety in the learning process.Chanting murattal Al-Qur'an contains elements of the human voice which is an amazing healing instrument because it can reduce stress hormones, activate natural endophrin hormones and can increase feelings of relaxation (Nugraha, 2020).The term Al-Qur'an refers to a mushaf or sheets that were handed down to humanity in a continuous and reliable manner, containing the sacred text.Research conducted by Fitriani et al. (2022) highlights the importance of tajwid in reading the Al-Qur'an, as it is a rule that ensures the correct and precise pronunciation of the sacred verses.Efforts to strengthen the preservation of the Al-Qur'an are also carried out through the use of recording media as a learning tool.According to Awad (2014), the recitation of the Al-Qur'an has the power to heal and strengthen both physically and mentally.The sound of this recitation can help focus attention and reduce fear, anxiety, and tension.Research conducted by Prasetyo et al. (2023) reveals that each verse in the Al-Qur'an contains healing potential (syifa') that is curative.These verses can also evoke positive emotions in individuals who read them.Furthermore, according to Fatimah (2014), the arrangement of the verses and the sound waves of the Al-Qur'an align with the frequency of cell and brain vibrations in humans, giving the Al-Qur'an an energy that can significantly influence a person's mental and physical condition.In a book written by Maulana (2015), it is explained that the tempo of murattal Al-Qur'an with a low tone can provide a calming and relaxing effect on the listener, helping to reduce stress and anxiety.
In a book written by Abdullah (2016), it is explained that the murattal Al-Qur'an therapy method plays an important role in enhancing learning concentration.Abdullah explains that murattal Al-Qur'an can reduce anxiety and tension, helping individuals to be more focused and calm.Research from Asrul (2023) suggests that Al-Qur'an murattal can be used as a new sound therapy that can provide calm to individuals and as a reminder of themselves through an Islamic approach.In line with previous research, according to Apriyani (2015), relaxation techniques, including listening to murattal, can increase children's concentration, especially in the learning process.
According to Wahyuni and Komariah (2020), through research on the effectiveness of murattal therapy and classical music therapy in reducing preoperative anxiety levels, it shows that murattal therapy can have a calming effect.These studies provide a theoretical basis that listening to murattal Al-Qur'an can increase study concentration and have a positive impact on concentration abilities.Good concentration is if someone is in a relaxed condition without stress, which is characterized by the subconscious mind being opened by 88% (Olivia, 2017).
The problem in this research will answer the question of whether providing Al-Qur'an murattal therapy regularly over a certain period can significantly increase students' learning concentration.By focusing on a number of student samples which will be divided into an experimental group that received Al-Qur'an murattal therapy and a control group that did not receive it, this study aims to measure and compare the increase in learning concentration between the two groups.This research is expected to provide strong empirical results regarding the effectiveness of Al-Qur'an murattal therapy in the context of increasing student learning concentration.The relationship between Gardner (2003) theory of multiple intelligences and Qur'anic murattal therapy that aims to improve learning concentration can be reflected through the identification of certain types of intelligence that are influenced by the experience of listening to Qur'anic murattal.Furthermore, Qur'anic murattal therapy can also affect the cognitive domain through influences on memory and executive function.Understanding the meaning of the verse and recalling the recitation may contribute to an increase in working memory capacity.
In the plan to complete this research, researchers will start with the preparation stage which includes selecting student samples, providing standardized Al-Qur'an murattal therapy, and using valid learning concentration measurement tools.After that, the research will be carried out by dividing the sample into two groups, namely an experimental group that will receive Al-Qur'an murattal therapy for a certain period and a control group that will not receive therapy.Researchers will record study concentration data in both groups during the research period.Data analysis will be carried out using appropriate statistical methods to compare the differences between the two groups and determine whether Al-Qur'an murattal therapy has a significant effect on increasing study concentration.The results of this research will be presented in a complete research report, which is expected to provide valuable insight into the potential of Al-Qur'an murattal therapy in the context of increasing learning concentration in students.This research aims to test how much influence listening to murattal Al-Qur'an has on increasing the ability to concentrate on learning in Students at Palembang aged 18-22 years.This research also aims to see differences in learning concentration abilities between individuals before the Al-Qur'an murattal is heard and after the Al-Qur'an murattal is heard.

Method
This research is quasi-experimental quantitative research, namely experimental research using available samples (Abraham & Supriyati, 2022).Furthermore, this research refers to quasiexperimental quantitative theory through Al-Qur'an murattal therapy as an intervention.In Educational Psychology : Windows on Classrooms by Eggen and Kauchak (2016) states that an experimental approach supports efforts to understand the impact of therapy on learning concentration.The Koran as a source of pervasive sound, may provide deep experiences that influence concentration capacity.The types of experimental research carried out were two group pretest post-test design, namely a two-group design divided into an experimental group and a control group.The experimental group will get a pre-test before being given treatment (treatment) and will be measured again (post-test) after being given treatment.The control group will get pre-test and post-test without treatment.The pre-test post-test design according to Shaughnessy et al. ( 2006) is used to test the effect of a treatment on the dependent variable.The research score is obtained from giving a post-test , namely if the post-test score is more than the pre-test, it can be concluded that listening to the Al-Qur'an murattal can increase learning concentration (Seniati, 2011).
In this experimental research, researchers used Al-Qur'an murattal therapy which was carried out twice a week, every Wednesday and Sunday.Al-Qur'an murattal therapy uses Surah Ar-Rahman with a duration of around 11 minutes which will be held once a week with a research period lasting 4 weeks, starting from 27 September-25 October 2023.Each Al-Qur'an murattal therapy session will held on Wednesday and Sunday at 13.00-13.30WIB, via the zoom meeting platform .The choice of Wednesday and Sunday was considered by researchers taking into account the availability and comfort of participants so as to enable participants to attend without disrupting other obligations.Researchers chose to run therapy twice a week to give participants enough time to respond to therapy and to allow researchers to observe changes in well-being and the development of learning concentration from session to session.
The measurement of psychological variables in this study used the WAIS-IV digit span forward and backward tests from the Wechsler Intelligence Scale (Wechsler, 1997).The research population was all psychology faculty students class of 2021 at Raden Fatah Islamic State University, Palembang.The research sample was chosen based on random classes consisting of classes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7.In this study the researcher obtained the results that class 3 was selected as the research sample.Class 3 consisted of 32 students who then entered the screening stage and 30 students with an age range of 18-22 years were selected who were divided into two groups, namely consisting of 15 people in the experimental group and 15 people in the control group.
This research based the measurement of learning concentration on digit span forward and backward WAIS-IV, an intelligence test developed by David Wechsler who stated that intelligence involves working memory capacity and other intellectual aspects (Wechsler, 1958).Focusing on a population of psychology students, this study details the use of Al-Qur'an murattal therapy, especially Surah Ar-Rahman to understand its effect on increasing study concentration.The data in this study was collected through two experimental sessions, namely an 11-minute session of listening to Al-Qur'an murattals for the experimental group and specifically the control group which was not given any treatment.This study used the digit span forward and digit span backward tests from the Wechsler Intelligence Scale subtest as a tool to measure concentration abilities.This test consists of 8 digit span forward questions and 7 digit span backward questions .

Results and Discussion
Statistical analysis in this research uses quantitative methods, namely data is collected through the t-test statistical test.The T-test is used to test the significance of differences in interval measuring scale data, namely the difference between the population mean and the value obtained from the sample (Wardani, 2020).The hypothesis in this study is that H0 states that there is no effect of Al-Qur'an murattal therapy on increasing learning concentration in students, while H1 states that there is an effect of Al-Qur'an murattal therapy on increasing learning concentration in students.The following are the results of research data collection:  In the table of research results for the control ( Pre-test and Post-test) and experimental (Pretest and Post-test) groups above, it is obtained from the sum of the digit span forward and digit span backward scores from the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale IV (WAIS) subtest.-IV).The score in the table is also obtained from the sum of the last numbers that the research subjects were able to memorize correctly .This research also uses descriptive analysis to explain and describe the research data, namely as follows: Based on the table above, it is known that the average for the experimental group's pre-test was 9.20, while the experimental group's post-test was 11.60.This means that the average pre-test of the experimental group is smaller than the average post-test of the experimental group, this proves that after being given the treatment of listening to the murattal of the Al-Qur'an Surah Ar-Rahman, students' concentration will increase.The pre-test standard deviation of the experimental group was 1.6; while the post-test standard deviation for the experimental group was 1.8.The variance for the experimental group pre-test was 2.7; while the variance for the experimental group post-test was 3.2.pre-test average was 10.27, while the control group's post-test average was 9.20, meaning the concentration level decreased after the test was carried out again.The pre-test standard deviation of the control group was 2.2; while the post-test standard deviation of the control group was 1.5.The pre-test variance of the control group was 4.9; while the control group's post-test variance was 2.4.Based on the results of data collection in the experimental group and control group, the statistical tests used were normality tests and homogeneity tests, so the following data were obtained: Based on the normality test output above, it is known that the experimental group has a significant value (sig.) of 0.203 ( pre-test ) and 0.851 ( post-test ).Meanwhile, the normality test above shows that the control group has a significant value (sig.) of 0.936 ( pre-test ) and 0.768 ( post-test ).It can be concluded that the research data is normally distributed because the data has a value of >0.05.Based on the output of the posttest homogeneity test above, it is known that the significance value (Sig.) is 0.514 so it can be concluded that the research data comes from a population that has the same variance because the data results are > 0.05 so the next stage is to carry out an independent sample t-test statistical test for find out the difference in the means of two unpaired samples.Based on the independent sample t-test above, the sig significance value was obtained .(2-tailed) < 0.05, it can be concluded that there is a significant difference between the control group and the experimental group regarding the level of learning concentration in students.If Population ≤ (a = 0.05), then H0 is rejected, which means that H1 in this study is accepted because there is an influence of Al-Qur'an murattal therapy on increasing learning concentration in students of the Psychology faculty at UIN Raden Fatah Palembang.Based on the data above, results were obtained which prove that providing the Al-Qur'an surah Ar-Rahman murattal therapy stimulus has a significant influence on increasing student learning concentration.
After testing using the digit span research instrument in the experimental group, it showed that there was a significant difference between before and after being given Al-Qur'an murattal therapy treatment.Meanwhile, in the control group there were no significant differences between before and after the study because they were not given Al-Qur'an murattal therapy treatment.When testing the experimental group before being given Al-Qur'an murattal treatment (pre-test), only 4 people out of 15 people met the criteria to pass with digit span values at numbers 11 and 12.Meanwhile, testing in the experimental group after being given treatment (post -test) there were 10 people who met the criteria for passing with digit span values increasing from before treatment (pre-tes).
When testing the control group without giving Al-Qur'an murattal therapy treatment so that during the pre-test there were 7 people out of 15 people who met the criteria to pass with digit span values at numbers 11, 12, 13 and 14.Meanwhile, testing in the group During the post-test control, there were 3 people who met the criteria for passing with digit span values increasing from before the research (pre-test).So it can be concluded that there is a decrease in concentration in students who do not listen to the murattal of the Al-Qur'an.
Based on the statistical test analysis above, it shows that listening to murattal can influence an individual's ability to concentrate on learning.According to Sati and Sunarti (2021).Learning concentration is a form of a person's ability to focus their thoughts and attention in learning activities.In a book written by Mulyadi (2016), it is explained that learning concentration is an individual's ability to focus attention on learning activities.Mulyadi also defines learning as a process of effort undertaken to achieve a better change in behavior.In this research, there are also other factors that can influence concentration, one of which is anxiety.According to Putri (2019), anxiety is a person's emotional turmoil that is related to something outside themselves so that it is clear that anxiety has an influence on a person's life, both positive and negative.Basically, each individual has a different level of anxiety, depending on how the individual deals with the triggers of the anxiety they feel (Suwandi & Malinti, 2020).Research conducted by Nugraha et al. (2021) states that each individual has varying levels of anxiety, depending on how they cope with the triggers of their anxiety.According to Lestari (2015), anxiety is a subjective feeling of tension that causes unease as a reaction to an inability to solve problems or a lack of security.This anxiety then leads to physiological and psychological changes.These feelings of uncertainty will later lead to physiological and psychological changes.
Anxiety according to Prayer et al. (2019) is characterized by the emergence of feelings of tension, fear, worry and physiological changes such as changes in blood pressure, increased heart rate and changes in respiratory frequency.Furthermore, physiological changes resulting from anxiety can be characterized by cold fingers, faster heartbeat, cold sweats, dizziness, decreased appetite, restless sleep and chest tightness.Meanwhile, The Psychological Impact of Excessive Anxiety is possible interfere with the learning process because of feelings of fear and worry about something Anxiety that occurs in teenagers can have an impact on what happens insomnia, difficulty focusing or concentrating, easy to forget, tends to have feelings frustrated and easily angered (Fitria & Ifdil, 2021).
According to Nevid et al. (2005) there are three types of anxiety symptoms including: a.The physical symptoms of anxiety are restlessness, shaking body parts, sweating a lot, difficulty breathing, heart beating fast, feeling weak, the body becomes hot and cold, irritable or irritable.b.Behavioral symptoms of anxiety include avoidance behavior and feelings of shock.c.Cognitive symptoms of anxiety are worrying about something, feeling disturbed by fear of something that will happen in the future, belief that something scary will happen soon, fear of being unable to solve problems, lack of concentration and confusion.
According to Oken (2004) music can have a therapeutic effect on the human mind and body.The effects of sound can influence the entire physiology of the body by activating the sensory cortex with secondary activity deeper in the neocortex and flowing into the limbic system, hypothalamus and autonomic nervous system.Eighth and tenth cranial nerves carries sound impulses through the ear so that the vagus nerve which helps regulate heart rate, respiration and speech will carry sensory motor impulses to the throat, larynx, heart and diaphragm.Sound therapists state that the vagus nerve and limbic system are the parts of the brain responsible for emotions and the link between the ear, brain and autonomic nervous system which explains how sound works in healing physical and emotional disorders.
One type of music therapy is auditory stimulation.According to Oken (2004), auditory stimulation is providing stimulation to hearing using sound.Sound travels in the air at a speed of 340 m/sec, consisting of vibrations from the source until it reaches the ear, then through the ear it will spread throughout the body.Cells that are affected by sound vibrations will respond by changing their own vibrations.Brain cells vibrate or send magnetic and electromagnetic waves that represent brain activity.Brain cells are influenced by all vibrations, whatever the type and wherever the source comes from.One of the religious therapies with auditory stimulation is murattal.Murattal auditory stimulation is auditory stimulation through chanting the holy verses of the Koran which are packaged in audio or video form.The holy verses of the Koran have a therapeutic effect on those who read and those who listen (Oken, 2004).
In the field of therapy using an Al-Qur'an approach, Siti Aisyah (2019) provides an overview of the therapeutic influence of chanting holy verses on psychological well-being.He emphasized that therapy based on the Koran can help increase focus, reduce stress and improve quality of life.Murattal auditory stimulation has a distraction effect that increases the formation of endorphins which cause muscles to relax.Music therapy and murattal therapy also work on the brain, where when an individual is stimulated by external stimulation, namely through music therapy and the Koran, the brain will produce chemicals called neuropeptides.This substance will connect to the receptors in the body and will provide feedback in the form of pleasure or comfort (Allina, 2021)

Conclusion
Based on the results of the research and data processing above, it can be concluded that the hypothesis (H0) which states that there is no effect of Al-Qur'an murattal therapy on increasing learning concentration in students of the Psychology faculty at UIN Raden Fatah Palembang is rejected.This shows that the results of the research prove that providing the murattal therapy stimulus of the Al-Qur'an Surah Ar-Rahman which lasts around 11 minutes has a significant influence on increasing student learning concentration between those who listen and those who don't listen to the murattal.Although there are other factors that can influence students' study concentration, this research found that murattal Al-Qur'an can be a way or method to increase study concentration.
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Table 1
Experimental Group Research Results

Table 6
Independent Sample T-test