Here are some of the best questions for a high school junior student survey about STEM interest and confidence, plus tips for crafting them. If you want to build a survey in seconds—complete with smart follow-ups—Specific can help you generate a ready-to-use interview now.
Best open-ended questions for STEM interest and confidence surveys
Open-ended questions are the best way to get students talking about their personal experiences with STEM. Unlike fixed choices, these prompts let students explain in their own words, helping you understand what motivates or discourages them—crucial information for programs or curriculum changes.
For high school junior students, open-ended questions shine when you want to discover hidden attitudes or barriers. Research shows that even when students, especially girls, have strong STEM aptitudes, their interests can lag sharply behind; surveys need to surface what’s really going on beneath the surface. One study found that female students had 10 times more aptitude than interest in architecture and engineering, and nearly four times more in computers and mathematics. [1]
What got you interested in science, technology, engineering, or math (STEM) in the first place?
Can you share a moment when you felt confident about your STEM skills? What happened?
What makes you excited (or not) about learning science or math at school?
Who or what has most influenced the way you feel about STEM subjects?
Have you ever faced challenges or setbacks in your STEM classes? How did you handle them?
Do you see yourself using STEM in your future career? Why or why not?
How do your teachers or family support—or not support—your STEM interests?
What would make you feel more confident about taking advanced STEM courses?
Are there activities outside class that have helped you build skills in STEM?
What advice would you give to students who feel intimidated by STEM classes?
Best single-select multiple-choice questions for STEM interest and confidence
Single-select multiple-choice questions work well for quantifying trends across groups of students or prompting quick responses. Sometimes, picking from a few clear options helps jump-start the conversation—especially if students feel stuck or overwhelmed by a blank text box. You can always dive deeper with follow-ups or open-ended questions afterward.
Question: Which STEM subject do you feel most confident in?
Math
Science
Technology/Computers
Engineering
None/I’m not confident in any
Other
Question: How interested are you in pursuing a STEM career?
Very interested
Somewhat interested
Not sure
Not interested at all
Other
Question: Who encourages you most to pursue STEM subjects?
Family
Teachers
Friends
No one
Other
When to follow up with "why?" Follow-up "why" questions are important when a student picks a surprising or ambiguous option. For instance, if someone chooses "Not interested at all" for STEM careers, asking "Why do you feel that way?" can uncover barriers you may be able to address—or reveal misconceptions worth clarifying.
When and why to add the "Other" choice? "Other" lets students express unique experiences you might not anticipate. If a student picks "Other" and explains, you might discover overlooked support systems or roadblocks that standard options miss. Follow-ups here can uncover insights that transform how you engage your audience.
NPS survey for student STEM interest and confidence
Net Promoter Score (NPS) isn’t just for businesses. For education, NPS can quantify how likely a student is to recommend STEM classes or programs to a friend. This single number, followed by a "why," unlocks a quick pulse on satisfaction and opens up richer conversations about motivation and barriers. You can generate a conversational NPS survey designed for high school juniors about STEM confidence using Specific’s NPS generator.
The power of follow-up questions
Every great survey is a conversation. Automated follow-up questions are what transform a lifeless form into a true exchange. See how automated follow-up questions work in practice and why they matter: when someone answers vaguely or with uncertainty, follow-ups dig beyond the surface, collecting full context for richer insights.
Specific uses AI to ask these follow-ups in real time—so if a student says, “I’m not confident in math,” the survey instantly asks what makes it difficult (or enjoyable). This saves you hours of back-and-forth emailing, and makes the survey feel more like a natural, curious chat.
High school junior student: "I don’t really like STEM."
AI follow-up: “Can you share what turns you off or makes it difficult for you?”
How many follow-ups to ask? Generally, 2–3 follow-ups is plenty. Get the detail you need, then move on. With Specific, you can set a maximum or let the AI stop automatically once it collects enough detail.
This makes it a conversational survey—instead of a static checklist, you and your respondent are engaged in real dialog (one reason response rates and quality are higher).
AI-powered survey analysis: AI can analyze unstructured responses with ease. See how to analyze responses from open-ended questions and follow-ups—finding themes, highlights, and trends across the conversation, no matter how many students respond.
Try generating a survey with automatic follow-ups and see how much richer your feedback becomes—it's a new level of depth that’s hard to match otherwise.
How to craft prompts for ChatGPT or GPTs to generate great survey questions
Crafting the right prompt is everything. To get great survey questions for high school junior students about STEM, start simple—then add more context for better results. Here’s how:
Basic prompt to get started:
Suggest 10 open-ended questions for high school junior student survey about STEM interest and confidence.
The more context you give about your goals, the better AI performs. For example:
I’m creating a survey for high school juniors, mainly girls, to understand why their STEM interests may not match their strong aptitudes. Questions should explore confidence, barriers, and support systems both in school and at home.
After you generate your first list, ask AI to sort it for clarity:
Look at the questions and categorize them. Output categories with the questions under them.
Now choose which areas to dive deeper into. If “role models” and “school support” jump out, try a prompt like:
Generate 10 questions for categories “role models” and “school support.”
You’ll quickly build a powerful, focused survey this way.
What is a conversational survey?
A conversational survey feels like a chat, not a test form. The difference is real: instead of bland questions, respondents get dynamic follow-ups, encouragement, and a natural back-and-forth that keeps them engaged.
Manual survey creation usually means laboriously writing and editing questions, setting logic rules, and puzzling over survey order. In contrast, AI survey generators like Specific let you describe your goal and instantly get a robust, flowing survey by chatting with the AI.
Manual Surveys | AI-Generated Surveys |
|---|---|
Slow to build, easy to get stuck | Instant creation from a single prompt |
Static questions, no automated follow-ups | Dynamic, context-aware follow-up questions |
Hard to keep students engaged | Feels like a real conversation (higher response quality) |
Analysis is manual and time-consuming | Automatically summarizes and analyzes responses with AI |
Why use AI for high school junior student surveys? AI-driven surveys save hours, uncover richer insights, and easily adapt as your feedback goals change. For example, over 80% of students reported increased interest in STEM after interactive programs. [3] When you want to understand the full picture behind those stats, an AI conversational survey is unbeatable.
If you want to go step-by-step, see our detailed guide on how to create a high school junior student survey about STEM interest and confidence.
Specific offers best-in-class conversational survey tools, delivering a feedback experience students and educators actually enjoy—and producing high-quality, actionable data.
See this STEM interest and confidence survey example now
Get insights that matter and make every student’s voice count—start a high school junior student STEM survey that engages, follows up naturally, and helps you truly understand what builds (or blocks) STEM confidence.