Abstract

Since education is a major step toward long-term human capital development, it is assumed that facility in the use of information and communication technology (ICT), which can help complement, enrich, and transform education, should be promoted among students. However, does a higher level of ICT familiarity always help promote learning skills and educational outcome? This empirical research paper investigates the impacts of ICT familiarity on educational outcomes in developing countries where access to ICT infrastructure is limited. Using Thailand as a case study of a developing country, a nationally representative survey of 8249 students from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in Thailand was analyzed. Our results show that using ICT for educational proposes can help improve Thai students’ PISA scores. However, using ICT that is not tailored to educational proposes is found to have an insignificant effect on educational outcomes. This result supports government, related agencies, and families in their efforts to foster children’s use of ICT to enhance their education, but suggests limiting such usage for non-educational proposes.