The relationship between intercessory prayer and student academic achievement

This dissertation presents the results of two experiments designed to study the relationship between intercessory prayer and student academic achievement as measured by the Virginia Standards of Learning (SOL) tests. These experiments measured the relationship between intercessory prayer and student academic achievement with the prayer offered both (a) proactively and retroactively and (b) at different levels of intensity. The unit of analysis in this study was individual schools. The population studied consisted of third grade students attending public elementary schools in southeastern Virginia and northern Virginia. The methodology for this study across both experiments was a true experimental design employing three levels of the independent variable of prayer intensity and four dependent variables of student academic achievement.;The results of this study are discussed and directions for future research are presented.;Neither experiment yielded statistically significant results.