The Role of Islamic Life Satisfaction in Academic Optimism of Underprivileged University Students: A Scoping Review

Abstract

Islamic life satisfaction concentrates on aligning material and spiritual dimensions. A Muslim Scholar calls it "Falah," the joy of existence in this world and the afterlife. At the same time, Academic optimism refers to an individual's positive attitude and beliefs about their academic abilities and future success in their studies. Thus, this study aims to review the studies on Islamic satisfaction with life and academic optimism within underprivileged undergraduates. Current study, researcher used a scoping review strategy to identify the studies conducted on the present topic. In searching for the potential articles to be considered for this scoping review, the researcher follows the guidelines of the flow chart, which was suggested in PRISMA.  The first part begins with identifying the articles through the databases, which are Scopus, Web of Science, Mycite, and Google Scholar, with n=520 articles; this is followed by the screening process of the gathered articles where n=300 articles were excluded for the exclusion criteria. The researcher further examined the remaining articles, which is 220 for the eligibility process; in this process, n=16 articles were found to be duplicated, which remained at n=204. Then, from 204 excluded n= 179 due to the focus on children, the remaining 25 articles were qualified for analysis and reference following the criteria regarding inclusion and exclusion in data collecting. The findings of this scoping review have highlighted several articles published in 4 selected journals on the scope of this study. Although all studies employ various designs (cross-sectional, correlational, quantitative) to investigate the correlations among several variables (e.g., optimism, religiosity, societal support) and life satisfaction among university students, each study has strengths and limitations regarding causal inference and generalizability. However, the implications current research leads to enhancement of life fulfilment within college learners across various study sites.