Memory consolidation is greatly influenced by an adequate quantity and quality of sleep. There are a number of studies that have looked at the effects of night time time sleep as well as afternoon naps on learning especially memory, but... more
Memory consolidation is greatly influenced by an adequate quantity and quality of sleep. There are a number of studies that have looked at the effects of night time time sleep as well as afternoon naps on learning especially memory, but there is a paucity of studies looking at this relationship in the context of Quranic memorisation. In this project paper, we set out to determine three things: 1) Adequacy of sleeping time allocated by tahfiz schools; 2) The practice of afternoon napping(qaylulah) in Khalifah Model School Secondary (KMSS); and 3) The effect of qaylulah on recall of Quran memorised in the morning of 20 students in that school. Of the thirteen tahfiz schools surveyed, none provided adequate sleeping time for their students as measured against the recommendations of the National Sleep Foundation, with tahfiz combined with academic schools doing worse. KMSS uses the practice of qaylulah to supplement night time sleep and can be a model for schools that want to ensure their students get adequate sleep. For the test of recall, using ANCOVA analysis with pre-intervention scores as a covariate, we found a significant and large effect (p=0.051, partial Eta Squared= 0.231) of qaylulah on recall of Quran memorised in the morning whereby students who slept for 45 minutes during qaylulah did much better than those who used the equivalent time watching a documentary. Tahfiz schools should ensure their students get adequate night time sleep which can be supplemented with qaylulah as it will help the students memorise better.
