Toward Educational Equity in the Digital Era: A Quantitative Study on College Students’ Perceptions in Sabah, Malaysia
Abstract
Educational equity in Malaysia ensures that all students receive the specific resources, opportunities, and academic support necessary to succeed, regardless of gender, age ethnicity, or family income, tailoring support to individual needs to achieve fairness and equal outcomes. The main purpose of this study was to investigate college students’ perceptions of educational equity in Sabah, Malaysia. Data were collected by administering an online questionnaire to 63 college students recruited from a private university college in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah. SPSS 29.0 was used to analyze data. First, the percentages of agreement on perceived educational equity were calculated. Second, Kruskal-Wallis H test was conducted to determine if there were any significant differences in students’ perceptions of the construct in relation to age and job experience. Third, Mann-Whitney U test was run to determine if there were any significant differences in terms of gender. Fourth, Wilcoxon signed rank test was used to determine if any of the educational equity items were significant at a hypothesized value of 3.5. Percentages of agreement showed that only a low to average proportion of college students tend to perceive that they experience education equity. Nonparametric tests revealed no significant differences in perceived educational equity by way of gender, age, and ethnicity. Wilcoxon signed rank test revealed that 19 the educational equity items were significant at p < .001, indicating that their medians tend to differ significantly from the hypothesized value of 3.5, with strong disagreement. Only four of the educational equity items were significant at p < .05, indicating that their medians tend to differ significantly from the same hypothesized value, with strong disagreement. In light of the findings, some recommendations were made on ways to increase educational equity among college students in Sabah.
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References
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