Assessing educational approaches to incorporate indigenous knowledge in enhancing learning motivation among Malaysian indigenous students / Shamila Mohamed Shuhidan ... [et al.]

Education serves the dual purpose of balancing Indigenous Knowledge (IK) and, at the same time, contributes to the modernization agenda. The integration of IK into the national education system through its curriculum and instructions is a desirable goal towards taking indigenous people's education into account as a democratic priority. However, previous studies found that there is a mismatch between curriculum, as well as pedagogy and Indigenous students’ interests and/or non-relatedness to their daily life activities. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to assess the educational approaches that incorporate IK, and their relationship with Indigenous students’ learning motivation. This quantitative study administered questionnaires to 140 Indigenous students from three selected schools in Malaysia. The findings indicate that learning motivation has the highest mean (4.34), followed by language with a 4.30 value. Further analysis reveals that out of five hypotheses tested, three are supported, specifically language, educational materials, and educational tools, as important educational approaches to incorporating Indigenous Knowledge. The expectation is that the Ministry of Education in Malaysia will integrate Indigenous Knowledge related to language, educational materials, and tools into the curriculum, thereby promoting inclusive learning and indirectly aligning with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 4 for quality education and SDGs 11 for sustainable cities and communities.