Here are some of the best questions for a Community College Student survey about instructor effectiveness, plus practical tips for designing them. With Specific, you can build a conversational survey with AI in seconds—effortless, insightful, ready to share anywhere.
Best open-ended questions for instructor effectiveness surveys
Open-ended questions dig deep, giving students space to share genuine feedback rather than just ticking boxes. They’re especially valuable when looking to understand context, motivations, and nuanced opinions—something traditional forms miss. And in fact, digital surveys already increase response rates dramatically at community colleges, sometimes up to 80% thanks to better experiences for both students and administrators. [1]
Here are ten of my favorite open-ended questions for community college students evaluating instructor effectiveness:
What aspects of your instructor’s teaching style make learning easier or more enjoyable for you?
How does your instructor help clarify difficult course concepts when you’re struggling?
Describe a time when your instructor made a positive impact on your understanding or motivation in class.
What, if anything, could your instructor do differently to better support your learning?
How effectively does your instructor encourage student participation and questions?
What feedback or suggestions do you have for improving this course with respect to how it’s taught?
Are there methods, tools, or approaches your instructor uses that you find especially helpful? Which, and why?
Can you share any challenges you’ve faced related to communication or availability with your instructor?
How does your instructor’s approach compare to others you’ve had in similar courses?
What else would you like us to know about your experience with your instructor this term?
Best multiple-choice questions for instructor effectiveness
Single-select multiple-choice questions are perfect when you want quick, quantifiable insights—like spotting trends or identifying areas that need extra attention. These are especially helpful if you want to get the conversation going without overwhelming respondents. Sometimes, clicking a choice is easier than figuring out what to say from scratch. Then, you can dig deeper with follow-up questions for richer insights.
Question: Overall, how would you rate your instructor’s effectiveness in helping you learn?
Excellent
Good
Fair
Poor
Question: How often does your instructor provide clear explanations and examples in class?
Always
Most of the time
Sometimes
Rarely
Question: Which method does your instructor use most successfully to help you understand course material?
Lectures
Group discussions
Hands-on activities
Online resources
Other
When to followup with "why?" If a student selects “Poor” or “Rarely”, asking “why?” uncovers root causes—maybe unclear examples, lack of feedback, or something specific to that class or teaching style. These details are gold for making real improvements!
When and why to add the "Other" choice? Always include “Other” when your answer list can’t capture all possible student experiences. Follow-up questions here often lead to surprising discoveries—a unique teaching strategy, or an unmet need that’s not yet on your radar.
Should you use an NPS question?
NPS, or Net Promoter Score, asks students how likely they are to recommend their instructor or course to a friend. While it’s most famous in business, NPS has real value in education because it directly measures student satisfaction and loyalty—key predictors of engagement and future course selection. You can generate a community college NPS survey on instructor effectiveness using Specific in just a few clicks.
Seeing your NPS score over time highlights improvements (or warning signs), letting you benchmark progress against previous semesters and other instructors or departments.
The power of follow-up questions
Open responses aren’t always crystal clear. That’s where smart, automated follow-ups shine. Automatic AI follow-up questions, like those in Specific, work just like a sharp human interviewer—clarifying, probing, and digging for details in real time, all while keeping the process friendly and conversational.
Student: “He explains things okay.”
AI follow-up: “Can you share an example of a time the explanation worked really well, or a time it didn’t?”
Student: “I had trouble reaching her outside of class.”
AI follow-up: “What could your instructor do to be more available or responsive?”
Without these follow-ups, you’re left guessing—and lose out on actionable detail.
How many followups to ask? Usually, 2–3 smartly guided follow-ups are plenty. If you already have the context you need, skip further questions and move on. In Specific, you can easily adjust this setting to fit your goals and avoid survey fatigue.
This makes it a conversational survey: Instead of a static checklist, the survey flows like a real conversation—more human, more engaging, and more likely to surface honest, detailed input.
AI survey response analysis: Even if you collect a mountain of open-ended feedback, AI makes the analysis side effortless. Read how easy it is to analyze qualitative responses from community college student surveys using smart summary tools.
Research keeps confirming that conversational, AI-driven survey approaches like this can deliver much greater informativeness, clarity, and actionable feedback compared to old-school forms. [5] Test-drive an AI-powered survey with Specific and see what a difference follow-ups make.
Prompting ChatGPT or other AIs for survey question ideas
If you want to brainstorm your own great questions for a community college instructor effectiveness survey, it all starts with the right prompt. Start simple:
Suggest 10 open-ended questions for Community College Student survey about Instructor Effectiveness.
You’ll get even better ideas if you give more context—describe your course environment, teaching styles in your college, what you’re hoping to learn. For example:
Our community college wants student feedback about instructors for STEM and Humanities classes, with a focus on teaching clarity, availability, and engagement. Suggest 10 open-ended questions that produce actionable insights for faculty development.
AI-generated questions come in all shapes—grouping them helps. Next, try:
Look at the questions and categorize them. Output categories with the questions under them.
Once you have clear categories (like engagement, communication, or use of technology), you can dig deeper:
Generate 10 questions for categories: Encouraging participation, Explaining difficult concepts, Instructor availability.
These prompt-based approaches also work beautifully with Specific’s AI survey builder, which automates the best of these ideas with expert refinement and real-time editing in plain language.
What is a conversational survey?
A conversational survey feels just like messaging—questions and replies flow back and forth in real time, rather than being a static, intimidating list. The big win? Specific’s conversational surveys use AI for dynamic follow-ups and rapid, deep dives into topics that matter.
Here’s how it compares at a glance:
Manual Surveys | AI-Generated Conversational Surveys |
|---|---|
Static form, fixed order | Interactive chat, question flow adapts in real time |
Hard to write and update | Updates instantly—just say what you want to change |
Low engagement, poor response rates | High engagement, better completion rates |
Difficult to analyze free-text answers | Automatic AI-powered analysis and summaries |
Why use AI for community college student surveys? The AI survey method is proven to boost response quality, makes editing and customizing surveys simple, and lets you gather insights you’d never surface with rigid paper or web forms.
If you want to see the full workflow, our detailed article on how to create a community college student survey about instructor effectiveness breaks it down step by step. Plus, Specific offers a best-in-class user experience—both for the survey creator and for every student who responds. All feedback is smooth, quick, and natural, built around the conversation.
See this Instructor Effectiveness survey example now
Jump in and experience a conversational AI survey firsthand. See just how easy it is to launch, iterate, and analyze top-quality community college instructor feedback with Specific—get the deep insights other surveys miss.