The link between ASASIpintar students' resilience with their self-esteem and academic performance

Abstract

Resiliency is an essential element in the maintenance of one's strong social bonds and responsible lifestyle. In the context of a student, resiliency which includes the feeling of competence, belonging, usefulness, potency and optimism plays an important part in his or her academic development. Generally, resilience is defined as the strength to confront problems and impediments in which everyone is bound to face in life or in other words, stoicism. This innate capacity in handling difficulties is as well believed to route to the building of an individual's authentic self-esteem. This cross-sectional study was conducted to investigate the link between resilience, self-esteem and academic performance among a sample size of 126 students from the ASASIpintar Foundation Programme based in Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM). The Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES) as well as the Adolescent Resilience Scale (ARS) were used as instruments. Our study found that there was no significant correlation between students' resilience and self-esteem. Likewise, an insignificant relationship between level of resiliency and academic performance is obtained. However, these results are by no means conclusive and further research need to be done to understand the complex nature of resilience and self-esteem.