ICT’S BELIEFS, SKILLS AND KNOWLEDGE: EVIDENCE FROM PRIMARY SCHOOLS’ SENIOR ASSISTANTS

Studies have shown that Information, Technology and Communication (ICT) has much influence in disseminating knowledge and information through the Internet using various channels such as the social network. In Malaysian schools, a number of efforts have been implemented to deploy ICT as a catalyst in enhancing schools' academic achievement and performance. This quantitative study was designed to investigate whether primary school senior assistants have high ICT skills and knowledge and ICT beliefs as similar to their principals. Thus, 159 senior assistants from 72 primary schools were randomly selected to give their feedbacks on their ICT beliefs, skills and knowledge related to ICT. Findings revealed that primary school senior assistants score high on ICT beliefs that ICT is able to enhance the school's academic achievement even improving their own performance. In terms of skills and knowledge of using ICT, primary school senior assistants revealed that they are frequent user of the online application but facing some problems in developing their webpage and installing their computer software application. Inferentially, there are significance difference in terms of primary school senior assistants' gender on the element of skills and knowledge but no significance differences in terms of primary school senior assistants ICT beliefs. Based on respondents' age factor, there are high significance differences based on both constructs.