Psychological Strengths Contributing to Rural Student’s Academic Performance in Kadazandusun

Achieving academic success is a shared dream among students. To achieve academic success, psychological strengths, such as psychological well-being, academic self-efficacy, and motivation, are predictors of students’ academic achievement. To examine these factors, a study was conducted on rural students from the Kadazandusun community residing in the interior Sabah division. It is predicted that each of these psychological factors may contribute to the academic achievement of these rural students. There were 668 Kadazandusun rural students from 17 rural schools in Sabah who participated in this study. A set of questionnaires comprising four parts was used to measure all the variables based on the following sequence: Section A measured demographic variables, Section B measured psychological well-being, Section C measured achievement motivation, and Section D measured academic self-efficacy. The simple regression analysis showed that each psychological factor moderately affected academic achievement. Psychological well-being, achievement motivation, and academic self-efficacy contributed 4.4%, 2.2%, and 5.1% of the variance in students’ academic achievement, respectively. This study’s results may give the Ministry of Education, schools, and parents a glimpse of hope that despite educational limitations, such as lack of infrastructure and geographical location, students’ psychological strengths can enhance rural students’ academic performance. Therefore, the educational authorities can provide more programmes regarding works that increase psychological well-being, motivation, and academic efficacy, which may contribute to the academic success of rural students.