The Influence of Quran Understanding on Tahfiz Students Memorization Performance

Understanding the Quran is an important requirement of interaction with the Quran in the process of learning the Quran. It is one of the methods to strengthen the memorization of the Quran among tahfiz al-Quran students. However, the learning method practiced in tahfiz institutions is seen to be more focused on memorization only and still lacks emphasis on mastering the comprehension of the verses memorized. This study aims to identify the influence of Quran understanding on memorization performance among tahfiz students. The objective of the study was to analyze students' perception of the influence of Quran comprehension on memorization performance and to analyze the influence of Quran comprehension based on learning performance evaluation. This study uses a quantitative method by conducting a survey study on 352 students at the Diploma level in three tahfiz institutions in the southern zone of Malaysia. The study was conducted by implementing a Likert Scale questionnaire and collecting data on students' final exam performance. The findings of the study were analyzed descriptively using the Social Science Statistics Package (SPSS) version 29 and inference analysis through a regression test to see the influence of the understanding of the Quran on the performance of memorization. The findings of the study found that through students' perceptions, the influence of Quran comprehension on memorization performance was at a high level with (mean=4.00). Meanwhile, the results of the regression test analysis showed a weak influence between the comprehension of the Quran and the memorization performance of students with an R value of 0.266. It shows that there is a weak relationship between comprehension variables and memorization performance variables. In conclusion, a new finding shows that the perception of the influence of comprehension on memorization performance is seen to be closely related while on the other hand, from the point of view of its influence on learning performance, it is seen as insignificant. Therefore, mastery of comprehension only serves as an external added value and does not affect the performance of students' memorization specifically and the tahfiz learning method needs to be updated to consider the demand to understand the Quran at various stages of learning.