Experiences of academic failure are a routine part of secondary schooling, yet the ways in which students interpret these setbacks are pivotal in shaping their motivation, emotional adjustment, and capacity for resilience. Drawing on Seligman's attribution theory and explanatory style framework, this qualitative study explored how secondary school students explain academic failure, with a specific focus on the personalization dimension of attribution. Data were obtained from written responses to a single open-ended question embedded within a larger paper-based survey administered to 629 secondary school students in Sabah, Malaysia. A multilevel thematic analysis revealed five distinct patterns of personalization. The results showed a clear predominance of internal forms of personalization, particularly those emphasizing moralized effort failure and difficulties in self-regulation, suggesting that many students view academic outcomes as personally controllable and closely tied to individual responsibility. At the same time, a notable subset of students attributed failure to enduring self-deficits and diminished self-worth, indicating potential susceptibility to maladaptive self-blame and psychological vulnerability. Smaller groups of respondents demonstrated conditional personalization shaped by contextual considerations or adopted a largely neutral attributional stance. Overall, the findings suggest that personalization operates as a multidimensional construct, with divergent implications for resilience depending on whether responsibility is interpreted as changeable behavior or fixed personal inadequacy. By examining attributional processes within an underrepresented East Malaysian educational context, this study contributes to the attribution literature and offers practical implications for attribution-informed teaching practices, school-based counselling, and educational policy aimed at fostering adaptive coping and student well-being in secondary education.