The Effect of Teaching the Ways of Finding Meaning Based on Quranic Teachings on the Happiness of Female Theologians

Being meaningful leads to happiness and enables people to interpret events and to develop values ​​for themselves about how human lives and what s/he wants in life. Since the Holy Quran has presented the way of living a meaningful life, the present study was conducted to investigate the effect of teaching the ways of finding meaning based on the Quranic teachings on the happiness of female theologians in Qom.

This is a quasi-experimental study with pre-test post-test control group design conducted as a group consultation in eight sessions. The statistical population of this study included all female theologians studying in the first semester in 2019 academic year in Qom. The sample population of this study was 60 female theologians aged between 18 to 25 years in the undergraduate level, who voluntarily enrolled in the study and were randomly divided into two control and experiment groups. The research instrument was the Oxford Happiness Questionnaire. The descriptive and analytical statistical methods (analysis of covariance) were used to analyze the data. In the present study, all the ethical considerations were observed and the authors declared no conflict of interest.

The results of data analysis showed that the mean happiness score for the experimental group was 94.51+31.40 before the intervention and 130.13+14.87 after group counseling. As a result, the ways of finding meaning based on Quranic teachings were effective in the level of happiness of religious scholars (P<0.001).

As the Quran verses have explained the ways of living a meaningful life, the concepts of Holy Quran are suggested to be used for students and theologians to create happiness.