Capturing language teachers’ work engagement in online EFL classes: a questionnaire development and validation study

Given the growing importance of teacher work engagement for instructional quality and student learning, the availability of valid and context-sensitive measurement instruments has become increasingly important. Although several instruments have been developed to assess work engagement, they were primarily designed for general occupational or educational settings and do not adequately capture the distinctive pedagogical, technological, and interactional demands of online English as a Foreign Language (EFL) instruction. To address this gap, this study developed and validated the Teacher Work Engagement Questionnaire (TWEQ), specifically designed to assess EFL teachers’ work engagement in online instructional settings. The study employed Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) to examine the factor structure, reliability, and construct validity of the TWEQ, which was administered to a sample of 225 EFL teachers. The results supported a four-factor structure comprising emotional, cognitive, behavioral, and social engagement. The instrument also demonstrated strong internal consistency and satisfactory convergent and discriminant validity, providing robust evidence of its psychometric quality. These results indicate that the TWEQ is a reliable and valid instrument for assessing teacher work engagement in online EFL contexts. By offering a context-specific measure of teacher work engagement, the TWEQ extends the existing literature and provides a valuable diagnostic and research tool for investigating teacher engagement in online EFL education. It may also assist teacher educators, administrators, and policymakers in identifying engagement-related strengths and areas requiring targeted professional support.