Evaluating the process and outcomes of cyber counseling is a critical task to provide the foundation of effective cyber counseling techniques. Thus this study set out to develop and validate a chat counseling outcome scale based on the outcome items c...
Evaluating the process and outcomes of cyber counseling is a critical task to provide the foundation of effective cyber counseling techniques. Thus this study set out to develop and validate a chat counseling outcome scale based on the outcome items collected from the clients and counselors that experienced chat counseling.
Research 1 was designed to develop a chat counseling outcome scale and confirm its constituents. For that items regarding chat counseling outcomes were collected from the clients that used chat counseling service, the counselor working for the cyber counseling lines, and experts on cyber counseling. Total 703 items were collected and narrowed down to 94 through the process of removing overlapping ones, reviewing the contents, and discussing with counseling experts. Then a preliminary questionnaire was made up consisting of 94 items on a five-point likert scale and administered online. The collected cases were examined with exploratory factor analysis. The findings led to five factors of 'understanding of self and other,' 'forming reliable relationships and self-opening,' 'acquiring problem-related information,' 'resolving negative emotions,' and 'willingness to change behavior.' Based on the five factors, a Chat Counseling Outcome Scale(CCOS) was developed to have 35 items.
Research 2 tried to test the validity of 'CCOS' using the reliability test for the newly developed scale and construct and concurrent validity test for the five factors identified in Research 1.
The findings of Research 2 were as follows: first, the inter-item consistency reliability of 'CCOS' was .98 for the overall scale and .90~.95 for the each factor, which means that the scale was very satisfactory and stable. Second, a confirmatory factor analysis was conducted using a structural equation model containing the five factors and their subitems. The NFI, CFI, and RMSEA were .87, .90 and .08 respectively, which were interpreted as satisfying goodness of fit indexes and used to test the construct validity. Third, the concurrent validity was tested by examining the correlations between CCOS and the 'Session Evaluation Questionnaire(SEQ),' 'Session Impact Scale(SIS),' 'Client Satisfaction Questionnaire(CSQ),' and 'Counselor Rating Form(CRF-S),' which were popular as reliable outcome measuring tools for face-to-face counseling. The correlations between CCOS and SEQ were .81(p<.01) and between CCOS and SIS .80(p<.01), being high, while they were low with .65(p<.01) and .72(p<.01) between CCOS and CSQ and between CCOS and CRF-S respectively. Those numbers imply that the more chat outcomes there were, the higher counseling satisfaction and counselor evaluation results were and prove the concurrent validity of 'CCOS.'
CCOS is thus expected to make a contribution to improvement of cyber counseling in terms of quality and professionalism being used as a reliable and valid tool in researches on cyber counseling including chat counseling. Finally the implications of the study were summarized as follows:
First, it was the first approach towards chat cunseling outcomes, which had remained in the estimation levels, through collecting data of empirical science and doing systematic analyses. Second, the chat counseling outcomes became specific in the five factors of 'understanding of self and other,' 'forming reliable relationships and self-opening,' 'acquiring problem-related information,' 'resolving negative emotions,' and 'willingness to change behavior.' Third, an outcome measuring tool, which was the most essential element in studying chat counseling outcomes, was developed and validated in the study and will be of help in future studies in the field of cyber counseling. Fourth, the factors of chat counseling outcomes can be made use of to offer chances of professional intervention and to form the foundation of cyber counseling techniques.