Here are some of the best questions for a high school freshman student survey about teacher support, plus tips on building your survey for maximum insights. You can instantly generate a conversational survey using Specific in seconds, making smarter feedback collection easier than ever.
10 best open-ended questions for teacher support surveys
Open-ended questions let high school freshmen use their own words, which helps us understand genuine feelings and context, especially when exploring how teachers support students.
They reveal the “why” behind an answer.
They're perfect when we want unscripted, richer feedback.
They often uncover things we wouldn't think to ask.
Letting students explain in their own words lets us tap into how they truly perceive support. Research shows that strong teacher-student relationships have a measurable impact on well-being and academic achievement. [1][4][9]
Can you describe a time when a teacher made you feel supported during your freshman year?
What qualities do you value most in a supportive teacher?
How do your teachers help you when you’re struggling in class?
What’s something teachers could do differently to better support freshman students?
If you could change one thing about your interactions with teachers, what would it be?
How comfortable do you feel asking your teachers for help? Why?
When do you feel most encouraged by your teachers?
Are there areas outside of academics where you wish teachers gave more support?
What’s the biggest challenge you face as a freshman, and how could teachers help more?
Describe how a teacher could make you feel more connected or understood at school.
Open-ended questions like these are at the core of every effective AI survey generated with Specific—they provide a nuanced understanding of student experiences.
Best single-select multiple-choice questions for teacher support surveys
Single-select multiple-choice questions are ideal when you need to quickly quantify feedback, spot trends, or break the ice before digging deeper with follow-ups. For high school freshman surveys, these questions help us measure sentiment and identify patterns in teacher support—students might find it easier or less intimidating to start with simple choices before diving into more detailed responses.
Question: How supported do you feel by your teachers so far this year?
Very supported
Somewhat supported
Not very supported
Not supported at all
Question: In what area do you receive the most support from your teachers?
Academics (classes and grades)
Personal challenges
Social life or relationships
Extracurricular activities
Other
Question: How often do you feel comfortable asking your teachers for help?
Always
Sometimes
Rarely
Never
When to follow up with "why?" Follow-up "why" questions are perfect when you need context behind a choice. For instance, if a student chooses "Rarely" for feeling comfortable asking for help, a follow-up like "What makes you feel hesitant to ask teachers for help?" can reveal obstacles or worries that numbers alone would miss. Digging in with a simple “why?” often reveals underlying issues—possibly improving how teacher support is delivered in the future.
When and why to add the "Other" choice? Always give students the opportunity to select "Other" when the preset choices might not reflect their situation. Following up on "Other" with an open-ended prompt lets students share perspectives survey builders may not have anticipated, sometimes surfacing new issues or innovative suggestions.
Should you add an NPS question to a teacher support survey?
NPS (Net Promoter Score) asks, "How likely are you to recommend your teacher(s) to another student?" on a scale of 0–10. It’s surprisingly relevant here—though most common in business, it can capture a high-level sense of satisfaction. In schools, it spotlights which classrooms excel at freshman support and where improvements are needed, giving a fast benchmark to track year over year or across groups. For a ready-made version, check this NPS survey for high school freshmen about teacher support.
NPS is simple, but its true value comes when it’s paired with follow-up questions: “Why did you give that score?” This exposes specifics behind ratings, so you can immediately act on the reasons for both promoter and detractor feedback.
The power of follow-up questions
There’s nothing worse than a vague answer. That’s why automated follow-up questions are a game-changer. When a freshman gives a short or ambiguous response, Specific’s AI generates insightful, relevant follow-ups in real time—just like a great interviewer would. This saves us from endless back-and-forth emails and makes the experience natural.
High School Freshman: "I feel supported sometimes."
AI follow-up: "Can you share an example of when you felt supported and when you didn’t?"
How many followups to ask? Two or three is usually enough—just enough to get clarity, not so many that you annoy your students. Specific even has a setting to move on once you’ve heard enough or to give students the option to skip.
This makes it a conversational survey: Instead of feeling like a boring test, the survey adapts to students’ input—sparking a real, two-way conversation.
AI response analysis and AI-powered summaries make reviewing large volumes of text a breeze. AI survey response analysis allows you to chat with the data, uncovering trends in minutes—even if responses are long or nuanced.
Follow-up questions take insights to another level. If you haven’t tried building a survey with AI-powered follow-ups, generate a survey and experience how much deeper your findings can go.
How to craft ChatGPT prompts for better survey questions
Prompts are everything when using an AI survey builder like ChatGPT or Specific’s AI survey generator. Start simple—then add context for even sharper results.
Here’s a basic starter prompt:
Suggest 10 open-ended questions for High School Freshman Student survey about Teacher Support.
But the more context you give, the better the output. For example, add who you are, your specific goals, unique student context, and what you want to learn most:
I’m a school counselor designing a survey for incoming high school freshmen. Our goal is to understand how supported they feel by their teachers in both academics and personal challenges. Suggest 10 thoughtful open-ended questions that encourage honest, detailed feedback.
Once you have question ideas, you might want to organize and refine them:
Look at the questions and categorize them. Output categories with the questions under them.
Zero in on categories that matter most, then go deeper:
Generate 10 questions for categories "Building trust" and "Academic help".
Prompts like these supercharge AI tools—whether used in ChatGPT, or when you let Specific’s AI survey generator do the heavy lifting for you.
What makes a survey “conversational”?
Conversational surveys feel like chat, not forms. They use AI to personalize the experience, instantly probe with follow-ups, and adjust based on context. This stands in sharp contrast to traditional survey creation, which demands manual crafting, limited variation, and often misses the nuance in real-world responses.
Manual Survey | AI-Generated Survey |
|---|---|
Build every question yourself | Prompt AI with goals; survey is created instantly |
Static, unchanging questions | Dynamic follow-up questions based on replies |
Hard to get thoughtful responses fast | Interactive and personal—conversational flow pairs short multiple-choice with deep open-ended probes |
Manual analysis, time-consuming | AI analysis—summaries, key insights, chat with data for instant answers |
Why use AI for high school freshman student surveys? Because AI survey generators like Specific make it easy to design personalized, engaging surveys, ask intelligent follow-ups, and analyze mountains of feedback—without needing research expertise or endless hours. See step-by-step how to create a survey for high school freshmen about teacher support. The result? Surveys that students actually finish, and feedback you actually use. That’s how you move the needle in student support.
When you build a conversational survey with Specific, you get best-in-class experience—smooth for both survey creators and student respondents. It’s more engaging, and the quality of answers is simply higher.
See this teacher support survey example now
Get a firsthand look at how a conversational AI survey can transform your feedback process for high school freshmen—capture richer insights and connect with students using surveys built to engage and uncover what really matters.