How to improve Yemeni refugee students’ achievement motivation?

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported that around twenty people every minute become refugees worldwide. Globally, the number of refugees totalled 25.4 million people worldwide at the end of 2017 (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees [UNHCR], 2018). An increase in the number of Yemeni people who are refugees is a new problem that started in 2015 because of the war & related circumstances in Yemen. Many Yemeni people fled their homes seeking safe places or because they lost their job. A large number of Yemeni refugees escaped to countries around the world such as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The study aims to improve Yemeni refugee students’ achievement motivation by introducing the construct of Islamic perspective of spirituality & resilience. The issue of achievement motivation of students has been a concern in educational psychology circles. However, it appears to be mostly not concerned with refugee students. From the previous literature review finding, the study supports the belief that Islamic spirituality affects refugee students because it encompasses the whole aspects of the person's life. It also describes the role of positive outcomes of resilience on refugee students. To achieve this, a new theoretical framework is proposed to describe how spirituality from Islamic perspective & resilience can impact the achievement motivation of Yemeni refugee students.

The study was an attempt to propose a new theoretical framework that outlined above to define & illustrate the concept of achievement motivation of Yemeni refugee students by introducing the construct of Islamic perspective of spirituality & resilience with paying particular attention to their effects on achievement motivation. Further, most of previous spirituality studies have addressed spirituality from a western point of view, which is different from the Islamic viewpoint of spirituality.

Consequently, this study attempts to fill the literature gap on spirituality from the Islamic perspective & proposes a new conceptual framework to enrich the understanding of the Islamic spirituality & resilience & its contribution to achievement motivation. This study will also help parents & teachers to improve Islamic spirituality & resilience in refugee students. Further theoretical clarification based on the current conceptual framework may provide western researchers with deep knowledge of the Islamic spirituality in Muslim society with particular emphasis on the soul as a source of happiness. Additionally, the present study calls researchers to develop models of Islamic spirituality that are appropriate in Muslim countries.

Source: Manal Ali Ahmed, Sahabuddin Hashim and Nik Rosila Nik Yaacob

USM, Universiti Sains Malaysia Penang, Malaysia https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6497-3256 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2014-1973 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3972-5688