BYOD implementation model in Malaysian schools: The perception and readiness of parents, schools, and teachers

Abstract

The proliferation of digital technologies has brought upon new possibilities in revolutionizing education. Learning is no longer constrained to face-to-face interaction, but it is opened up to a whole new dynamic of interactive online classrooms. Correspondingly, the Ministry of Education Malaysia (MOE) has embarked on the 21st Century Learning, which focuses on technology as an enabler. As such, Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) implementation can be seen as an effective cost mitigation strategy to lessen the government's burden on providing the optimal 21st century pedagogical ecosystem. The previous studies found six important factors of BYOD’s implementation, which are infrastructure, safety, knowledge, community, health, and culture. Malaysia is also aiming towards BYOD’s implementation; however, the policy is only focused on four factors, namely knowledge, community, infrastructure, and security, with limited descriptions of each factor. Therefore, this paper aims to discuss all the identified factors and propose a model to implement the BYOD implementation at school. This is a two-pronged study in which an optimal BYOD implementation model is proposed and subsequently, a quantitative analysis on the perception and readiness of schools, teachers and parents towards BYOD is discussed. Due to the disruptive nature of BYOD, the majority means of parents’ responses lean more towards the negative spectrum of the Likert scale. Hence, several proactive recommendations are suggested to ensure BYOD a fruitful pursuit.