Does ICT Use Matter between Socioeconomic Status and Academic Performance?

The present study explored the mediating and moderating effect of information and communications technology (ICT) use on the relationship between students' socio-economic status (SES) and their academic performance. Using the PISA (Program for International Student Assessment) 2015 data of seven East Asian countries involving 42,634 students, we find that ICT use neither mediates nor moderates the relationship between SES and academic performance. The findings are contradictory to what we used to perceive of ICT in education, making us reconsider the application of ICT use in secondary education and how ICT could be better integrated into curriculum implementation to enhance students' academic performance.