Best questions for college doctoral student survey about department climate

Here are some of the best questions for a college doctoral student survey about department climate, plus practical tips to create them. If you want to build a tailored, conversational survey in seconds, you can generate one instantly with Specific—no manual setup required.

Best open-ended questions for college doctoral student survey about department climate

Open-ended questions are your window into students’ real experiences—they let you capture unfiltered feedback, surface issues you might never have considered, and get the tone and stories behind quantitative metrics. They're especially useful when you need nuance or context, not a simple yes/no or rating.

1. What aspects of your department make you feel most included and supported as a doctoral student?

2. Can you describe a recent experience that positively influenced your sense of belonging here?

3. Have you faced any challenges related to diversity or inclusion in your department? Please share details.

4. What could your department do to foster a more positive and welcoming climate for doctoral students?

5. In what ways does your department support your academic and personal growth?

6. Can you share any incidents where you or others felt isolated or unsupported?

7. How would you describe the communication style between faculty and doctoral students in your department?

8. What resources or programs would help you feel more connected within the department?

9. Are there unwritten rules or norms that affect your experience as a doctoral student?

10. What suggestions do you have to improve the department’s culture for future doctoral students?

When you use open-ended questions, it’s easier to detect both consensus and outliers. For context, a survey at Virginia Tech found over 90% of doctoral students described their department as inclusive, supportive, fair, friendly, and positive. But 38% also reported feelings of isolation—a signal that numbers alone can miss key challenges. Open text questions help uncover those subtleties and guide better decision-making. [1]

Best single-select multiple-choice questions for college doctoral student survey about department climate

Single-select multiple-choice questions are ideal when you want to quantify responses quickly or give students an easy starting point. These questions help you spot trends, and they can serve as a launching pad for deeper follow-up questions. For example, when you’re tracking metrics over time, or want to understand if specific interventions move the needle on inclusion or satisfaction—they’re invaluable.

Question: How would you describe the overall climate in your department?

• Very positive

• Somewhat positive

• Neutral

• Somewhat negative

• Very negative

Question: Do you feel comfortable voicing your perspectives and concerns with faculty in your department?

• Always

• Often

• Sometimes

• Rarely

• Never

• Other

Question: Have you experienced or observed any instances of bias or discrimination in your department?

• Yes

• No

• Not sure

• Prefer not to say

When to follow up with “why?” After a respondent selects an answer, following up with “why?” or “can you elaborate?” often uncovers the motivating story—the what and the why. For example, if a student picks “somewhat negative” for department climate, a simple open follow-up like, “What experiences have most influenced your view?” transforms a basic response into rich, actionable feedback.

When and why to add the “Other” choice? Always use “Other” when you can’t guarantee your listed options cover every situation. When doctoral students pick “Other” and explain in their own words, automated follow-up questions can dig into what’s missing from your response categories—sometimes highlighting important blind spots you’d never catch otherwise.

NPS-type question: Does it make sense?

The Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a quick way to measure loyalty and advocacy: “How likely are you to recommend your department to a fellow doctoral student?” This single question creates a baseline, highlighting overall satisfaction and department reputation among peers. For tracking climate over time or benchmarking across departments, it’s one of the simplest, most effective tools—especially in academic settings.

Try generating a NPS survey for college doctoral students about department climate instantly, with tailored follow-up questions for promoters, passives, and detractors.

The power of follow-up questions

Automated, AI-generated follow-up questions change the game. Instead of static forms, you get dynamic conversations that probe, clarify, and dig deeper—just like a skilled interviewer. Learn more about automated follow-up questions and why they're so effective.

Specific’s AI asks these smart follow-ups in real-time, using the respondent’s last answer and the full context of previous questions. This approach transforms surveys from a dull one-way channel into a conversational experience, giving you context-rich insights. For researchers, it’s a massive time saver: instead of dozens of clarifying emails, the “interview” unfolds on the spot.

• Doctoral student: “Sometimes I feel left out in department events.”

• AI follow-up: “Can you tell me more about which events make you feel excluded, and what might help change that?”

Notice how a vague initial reply becomes detailed, actionable feedback—something you’d never get with just the first response.

How many follow-ups to ask? In our experience, 2–3 follow-up questions are usually enough. It’s powerful to enable users to skip to the next main question when their intent is clear. Specific offers this as a simple setting, so you can tune the depth of your conversational surveys to your goals.

This makes it a conversational survey: Instead of a dry web form, your survey becomes a dialogue—students open up more, and you collect richer data about the department climate. That’s the real benefit of conversational surveys.

Easy analysis with AI: All those follow-up responses can look overwhelming, but AI survey response analysis now makes it fast to find patterns, summarize key points, and surface insights—even when you’re working with lots of detailed stories and unstructured text.

Organizations using AI-driven conversational surveys report a 30% improvement in identifying key climate themes, as AI processes open-text at scale and with human-like nuance. [3] If you haven’t seen this approach in action, generate your own survey and experience how much better it feels.

How to write prompts for AI to generate great department climate questions

Want to get creative with your survey questions? Crafting a prompt for GPT-based AI can save you hours and open up new angles you may never have considered. Start simple, then layer in context for richer results.

First, try a basic prompt like:

Suggest 10 open-ended questions for College Doctoral Student survey about Department Climate.

While this works, the more you tell the AI about your situation, goal, and what you hope to learn, the sharper and more relevant its questions become. For example:

We’re running a survey for doctoral students in the College of X to understand how included and supported they feel in their departments. We want to surface both positives and negatives, as well as ideas for improvement. Suggest 10 open-ended questions that would help us achieve this.

Once you’ve generated a question bank, prompt the AI to organize for clarity:

Look at the questions and categorize them. Output categories with the questions under them.

Then, focus your next round:

Generate 10 questions for the “Department Communication” and “Resources for Support” categories.

Iterate like this until you’ve built a question set that covers every angle you care about.

What is a conversational survey?

A conversational survey takes the rigidity out of traditional web forms. Instead, it feels like a natural back-and-forth—one question at a time, real follow-ups, and context-aware clarification. Powered by AI, these surveys adapt in real time, creating a friendly experience for students (or any audience) and making it much easier to collect honest, nuanced feedback.

Typical manual surveys are static. You have to anticipate every scenario, script all possible follow-ups, and analyze piles of unstructured data afterward. By comparison, an AI survey generator like Specific creates a live, conversational interview: the AI asks, listens, probes, and then summarizes what matters. Here’s a visual breakdown:

Why use AI for college doctoral student surveys? AI-driven survey tools have unlocked a new level of research quality—quicker response rates (up 20% on open-ends), reduced inconsistencies, and much more actionable insights for leaders, faculty, and student organizations. [2][3] AI surveys give you a direct, always-on channel to hear what really matters.

Specific leads the pack on conversational survey experience, from question design to analysis. It's user-friendly for both survey creators and doctoral student respondents, making the feedback process far more engaging. If you want step-by-step guidance, see our guide on creating doctoral student climate surveys.

See this department climate survey example now

See what a truly conversational climate survey looks like—build your own example in moments, surface real student experiences, and discover how easy it is to uncover key themes with AI-powered follow-ups. Try it and experience the difference in depth, speed, and insight.