The Impact of Information Communication and Technology on Students' Academic Performance: Evidence from Indonesian EFL Classrooms

The present study examined the impact of Information Communication Technology [ICT] on a group of university students' academic performance in an Indonesian English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classroom. As the platform of the ICT usage in this current study, English learning websites was used as the independent variable. Academic performance (students' score on pre and post test) was used the dependent variable. The participants in the study were 60 students of the Department of Public Health at the State University of Gorontalo, Indonesia, i.e an experimental group of 30 students (n=30) and a control group of 30 students (n=30). They took English courses as one of the compulsory subjects in the university curriculum. This study used a mixed method of a quasi-experimental and a qualitative interview approaches. Based on the result of the quantitative method of data collection, ttests of this study indicated that students in the experiment group performed significantly better than the students in the control group. Test results also showed that there was a significant difference between students' score on the preand post-test. The students' score in the post test and post test in the control group, however, were not significantly different. As interview results showed, participants expressed their positive learning experience with technologies, growing motivation in English learning, and positive feeling and confidence on their language performance.