Development and validation of a survey of online counseling instructors engagement

The purpose of this study was to develop and evaluate a survey assessing counseling instructors' engagement in distance education. The Survey of Online Counseling Instructor Engagement (SOCIE) is a student evaluation tool designed to measure instructors' engagement styles in the online classroom environment. The instrument was developed based upon an extensive review of the counseling literature in online teaching and distance education. The SOCIE was administered to 268 graduate students enrolled in online counseling courses across the United States during the Spring 2018 semester. An exploratory factor analysis (EFA) with Principle Component Analysis extraction and the Direct Oblimin method identified two dimensions of online engagement style with a total of 31 items: Organizing and Coordinating Style and Active Engaging Style. SOCIE scores also evidenced good internal consistency reliabilities and correlated as expected with a measure of student satisfaction. Based on these psychometric findings, this instrument may be usedfor student evaluation of teaching effectiveness by counseling instructors in online courses. Finally, limitations and implications are also discussed.