Best questions for college undergraduate student survey about online learning experience

Here are some of the best questions for a college undergraduate student survey about the online learning experience, plus tips on how to craft them effectively. With Specific, you can build and customize a conversational survey for this purpose in seconds.

Best open-ended questions to ask college undergraduate students about online learning

Open-ended questions let students express their experiences, reveal what’s working (and what’s not), and surface ideas you might not expect. They’re ideal when you want context, stories, or in-depth feedback about online classes.

1. What aspects of online learning have helped you succeed academically?

2. Share a challenge you’ve faced while attending classes online. How did you handle it?

3. How do you stay motivated when studying remotely?

4. Describe your favorite online class and what made it engaging.

5. What features or tools in your online courses have been most useful?

6. How does your online learning environment at home affect your ability to focus and participate?

7. What changes would make your online learning experience better?

8. Tell us about a time technology made it easier—or harder—to learn online.

9. How do you collaborate and interact with classmates or instructors online?

10. If you could design your ideal online course, what would it look like?

Open-ended questions like these are especially powerful for understanding the nuance of student experience. We know from research that 81% of U.S. college students found online learning helped improve their grades because they could study at their own pace—a finding that open questions can help unpack in more detail. [3]

Best single-select multiple-choice questions for measuring online learning among college undergraduate students

Single-select multiple-choice questions are invaluable when you need quantifiable results or want to start a conversation with quick, easy choices. They help you get a sense of the group, and you can always dig deeper with follow-ups for richer insights.

Question: How would you rate your overall satisfaction with your online learning experience?

• Very satisfied

• Satisfied

• Neutral

• Dissatisfied

• Very dissatisfied

Question: Which aspect of online learning do you find the most challenging?

• Staying motivated

• Understanding course material

• Technical/internet issues

• Lack of interaction

• Other

Question: During the last semester, how many online-only courses did you take?

• 1 course

• 2–3 courses

• 4 or more courses

• None

When to follow up with “why?” Whenever a student picks an option, a targeted “why” can dig deeper—especially with satisfaction or challenge questions. If a student selects Dissatisfied, a follow-up like “Can you describe what made your online experience unsatisfactory?” opens up rich qualitative data that brings those numbers to life.

When and why to add the “Other” choice? “Other” is essential when your list might not cover all possible answers. It lets students share unique challenges or perspectives you may not have anticipated, and a follow-up can uncover trends you’d otherwise miss.

Quantitative questions are especially relevant: In fall 2022, 54% of college students took at least one course online, and 26% were fully online—so having checkboxes mapping to a range of experiences ensures you’re collecting diverse data. [1]

Should you use an NPS question in an online learning survey?

Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a simple but powerful question: “How likely are you to recommend online learning at our college to a friend?”—usually rated from 0–10. For college undergraduate student surveys about online learning, NPS makes sense because it captures overall sentiment and helps benchmark performance over time. Using NPS in this context quickly differentiates enthusiastic supporters from detractors, letting you investigate why students would (or wouldn’t) promote digital classes. If you want an instant NPS survey setup, you can generate an NPS survey tailored to college undergrads’ online learning experiences with Specific’s builder.

Forty-one percent of college students think their online learning is better than in-person—that’s a cohort you want to identify, nurture, and learn from. [2]

The power of follow-up questions

It’s hard to get nuanced answers with a single question. That’s where follow-up questions shine. With automated AI follow-up questions, you can let the AI probe based on each student’s response—just as a skilled interviewer would in a real conversation. This is the core feature that makes Specific’s AI surveys uniquely valuable: the conversation is dynamic, adaptive, and context-aware.

• Student: The online lectures are fine, but sometimes I struggle.

• AI follow-up: Could you share an example of when you struggled during online lectures? What made it difficult?

Without the follow-up, you’d have only an incomplete answer. With it, you get actionable context.

How many followups to ask? Usually, 2–3 targeted follow-ups per question are enough to understand the “why” and “how” behind a student’s experience, but you can configure Specific to skip ahead if the answer is detailed enough. That way, you’re smart about respondent fatigue without missing key insights.

This makes it a conversational survey: Each survey feels like a two-way chat, turning feedback into a conversation—not just a form to fill out.

AI response analysis, easy summarization: Even with long, text-heavy replies, it’s easy to analyze all responses using AI—no matter how much nuance students add.

Automated probing is a newer way to survey—give the AI survey experience a try and see how much deeper your insight runs.

How to prompt ChatGPT (and other AIs) to generate survey questions for college undergraduates

You can get a solid list of questions just by asking directly. Try this prompt:

Suggest 10 open-ended questions for college undergraduate student survey about online learning experience.

You get even better results when you add more context about yourself, your role, or your goals in the prompt. For example:

I’m a university researcher designing a survey to understand the challenges and benefits of online courses for undergraduate students in the U.S. Please suggest 10 open-ended questions that will gather both positive and negative feedback and encourage students to recommend improvements.

Once you have your questions, try this organizing prompt:

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

This approach helps prioritize and refine your survey. Take those categories and dig deeper by prompting:

Generate 10 questions for categories like “Technical challenges” and “Learning engagement.”

What is a conversational survey?

Conversational surveys use AI to mimic a real-life interview: each student answers, and the survey adapts with intelligent follow-ups—rather than just moving down a list. This approach is a massive upgrade from traditional survey forms, especially in education, and it’s quickly becoming best practice for colleges looking to maximize engagement and insight.

Let’s compare the two:

Check out our step-by-step guide to creating a college undergraduate student online learning survey for more tips.

Why use AI for college undergraduate student surveys? AI-powered survey makers like Specific create surveys that students want to finish—they dig deeper, surface more context, and massively reduce the time and friction involved in survey design. If you need an AI survey example for online classes, you get best-in-class user experience with Specific’s conversational surveys, which are just as easy for survey creators as for students giving feedback.

See this online learning experience survey example now

Start capturing richer, more actionable feedback from college undergraduates today—use a conversational, AI-driven survey and see the difference in response quality and student engagement.