Journal of Social Sciences 7 (2): 113-119, 2011
ISSN 1549-3652
© 2010 Science Publications
Corresponding Author: Bahaman Abu Samah, Laboratory of Rural Advancement and Agriculture Extension,
Institute for Social Science Studies, University Putra Malaysia
113
Can Technology Acceptance Model be Applied on the Rural Setting:
The Case of Village Development and Security Committee in Malaysia
Bahaman Abu Samah, Hayrol Azril Mohamed Shaffril,
Musa Abu Hassan and Jeffrey Lawrence D’Silva
Laboratory of Rural Advancement and Agriculture Extension,
Institute for Social Science Studies, University Putra Malaysia
Abstract: Problem statement: Malaysia has come out with a number of strategies such as National
Information Technology Center, Universal Services Provider, Rural Internet Center and Rural Info
Center to strengthen and encourage ICT usage among the rural community. Besides the efforts that are
brought by the government, do the rural community especially their leaders which are the Village
Development and Security Committee use ICT? Approach: The main objective of this study was to
investigate any relationship that might occur between variables of Technology Acceptance Model and
ICT usage among Village Development and Security Committee. A total of 240 Village Development
and Security Committees were selected as the respondents for this study where a developed
questionnaire was used to gain the data needed. For the purpose of analysis, SPSS was used where
descriptive and inferential analyses were performed. Results: Based on the analyses run, it can be
concluded that Village Development and Security Committee in Malaysia have a moderate level of
ICT usage. Further analyses run showed that all of the three variables of Technology Acceptance
Model namely attitude, perceive ease of use and perceive usefulness have a positive and significant
relationship with ICT usage while attitude was detected as the main contributor towards ICT usage
among Village Development and Security Committee. Conclusion/Recommendation: This study has
revealed that Technology Acceptance Model that was used to explain ICT usage can be applied within
the Malaysian rural setting. It also can be concluded that Village Development and Security
Committee with a high level of attitude, perceive ease of use and perceive usefulness towards ICT will
have higher level of ICT usage. To further develop and sustain this high level of attitude, perceive ease
of use and perceive usefulness towards ICT usage, Village Development and Security Committee must
be frequently exposed to ICT information and knowledge. It is recommended that ICT house to
house training can be conducted among the Village Development and Security Committee by the
related agencies.
Key words: Rural development, village leaders, ICT usage, technology acceptance model
INTRODUCTION
Rural development through ICT development: Rural
development strategy was initiated by the government
for more than half a century in order to ensure the
continuity of development for the rural community.
One of the strategies to achieve this developmental goal
is to introduce and encourage use of ICT among the
rural community. Undoubtedly ICT is indeed an
important tool for development. Michiels and Van
Crowder (2001) has defined ICTs ‘as a range of
electronic technologies which when converged in new
configurations are flexible, adaptable, enabling and
capable of transforming organizations and redefining
social relations’. ICT has a lot of benefits to offer such
as enhance job performance, diversify tasks, speed up
communication, save energy, increase income, increase
productivity and many more (Rahman et al., 2005 and
Ghazy et al., 2008).
Based on the huge benefits offered by the ICT,
there are a number of ICT projects that have been
initiated by the government for the purpose of
enhancing ICT usage and to reduce the ICT illiteracy
among the rural community. The National Information
Technology Center (NITC), for example, was
established in 2002 in line with IT Policy 2000 under
the Ministry Science and Technology (MOST). The
main focus of NITC is to create knowledge based
society by supporting knowledge based institutions and