THE PSYCHOLOGICAL WELLBEING OF B40 FEMALE STUDENTS IN UNIMAS DURING COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Following the spread of COVID-19 pandemic, online learning method has been implemented as the new pedagogy by the Ministry of Education (MOE) for all educational institutions in Malaysia. This study aims to explore the psychological wellbeing of B40 university students in UNIMAS during COVID-19 pandemic. At the same time, the PERMA model approach was utilized based on the students’ experiences through the integration of five main components such as positive emotion, engagement, relationship, meaning, and achievement. This research also explores the challenges and struggles in B40 household groups faced by eight female students in UNIMAS throughout COVID-19 pandemic. Besides that, this research aims to identify the effective coping strategies in B40 households for maintaining their psychological wellbeing. The findings showed that there are various challenges and struggles faced by the students, for instance financial issues, academic struggles, family problems, personal issues, and social interaction struggles. Other than that, the findings also presented several coping strategies used by the students in facing those challenges such as problem-focused coping and emotion-focused coping. To conclude, this research can be made as a source of reference while bringing significant impacts towards the psychological wellbeing of university students from B40 household groups in accordance with the new pedagogical norm in higher educational institutions