ICT competency model in supporting lifelong learner towards productive aging / Anishariah Ramli

The current issues and challenges of elderly and population aging have encouraged the gerontologist to introduce the new term of productive aging. Shifting from an elderly who are dependent and burdening, to elderly who are independent and still can make contribution to the society. The role of ICT has proved to enable elderly to be productive at in technology-based society. However, the different in education background and professions, might create a gap in terms of ICT competency and this gap could be an obstacle in the development of productive aging. Furthermore, there is lacking of research in studying the ICT competence related with productive aging. This IT Project empirically identified the ICT competency for productive aging. In specific, there were three (3) objectives in this study as following: to identify the dimensions and elements of ICT competency that significant for productive aging; to identify the level of ICT competency that significant to productive aging; and to propose the ICT competency model for productive aging. A survey was conducted using questionnaire with 100 respondents within Arkib Negara Malaysia (ANM), one of government agency. The findings from related theory and literature review has identified three (3) dimensions of ICT competency that are Knowledge, Skill and Attitude and also lifelong learner characteristics as one of component of productive aging. The results showed that the level of Attitude dimension revealed as very competent and the other level of two dimensions which are Knowledge and Skill revealed as competent among respondents. Meanwhile the level of lifelong learner characteristics showing the medium tendency of lifelong learning towards productive aging. The results also showed that most of the path, whether among ICT competency dimensions itself or between ICT competency dimension and lifelong learner characteristics, there are a strong positive correlation. Lastly, based on the results and findings, the ICT competency model for productive aging has proposed.