Does ICT use matter? The relationships between students' ICT use, motivation, and science achievement in East Asia

Abstract

In PISA 2015, science was one of the major subjects investigated. Focusing on students science achievement and relevant influencing factors, this study comprehensively investigated the relationships between East Asian students' science achievement and their Information and Communication Technology (ICT) use in learning, ICT self-efficacy, motivational factors (i.e., enjoyment in science learning and instrumental motivation for learning science), and socioeconomic status using the PISA 2015 dataset. The data of six East Asian countries and regions was used. Student final weight and the 80 replicate weights were used to calculate unbiased estimates of population parameters and their corresponding standard errors. The synthesised results of structural equation modelling showed that students' ICT self-efficacy was positively related to their ICT use in learning, while ICT use in learning was negatively related to their science proficiency level. Enjoyment in science learning and instrumental motivation were positively related to their ICT use, but only enjoyment in science learning was positively and significantly related to science proficiency level. Socioeconomic status was highly related to students' science proficiency levels, but weakly related to their ICT use. These findings confirmed the adaptive roles of enjoyment in learning (compared to instrumental motivation) in Confucian heritage culture, and drew attention to the controversial roles of ICT use in educational settings.