Here are some of the best questions for a vocational school student survey about academic advising quality, plus tips to craft your own. You can generate a tailored survey with Specific in seconds, making feedback easy both for you and your students.
Best open-ended questions for a vocational school student survey about academic advising quality
Open-ended questions let students share detailed experiences and honest feedback—crucial for uncovering what’s working and what needs improvement. They're perfect when you want more than just a score or yes/no answer, especially for understanding complex or nuanced situations. In fact, research with about 600 participants found that conversational surveys like these drive higher engagement and richer answers compared to traditional, static forms. [2]
What’s one positive experience you’ve had with academic advising at our vocational school?
What is one thing you wish your academic advisor would do differently to support your goals?
Describe a time when you felt especially supported (or unsupported) by your advisor.
What is the most important area where your advisor could improve?
How clear was the guidance you received when selecting courses or career paths?
What topics or questions do you wish academic advising had covered with you?
If you could change one thing about the advising process, what would it be?
How did your advisor respond when you faced academic or personal challenges?
What resources or information do you think are missing from the current advising system?
Can you share any unexpected benefits or frustrations from your interactions with academic advising?
Best single-select multiple-choice questions for a vocational school student survey about academic advising quality
Single-select multiple-choice questions are best when you want to quantify responses or help students choose quickly from a few simple options. They’re also a gentle start: picking a choice can encourage students to share more details if you follow up with a probing question. Sometimes, it’s easier to select an option than to write out a response, letting you set the stage for deeper conversation.
Question: How satisfied are you with the overall quality of academic advising?
Very satisfied
Satisfied
Neutral
Dissatisfied
Very dissatisfied
Question: How often do you meet with your academic advisor?
Once per term
Several times per term
Only when needed
Never
Question: Which aspect of advising do you value the most?
Career planning
Course selection
Personal support
Connecting to resources
Other
When to follow up with "why?" It’s smart to follow a multiple-choice answer with a “why?” question when you’re looking for context, motivation, or unique examples. For instance, if a student chooses “Dissatisfied” for advisor quality, asking “What’s the main reason for your dissatisfaction?” surfaces actionable feedback.
When and why to add the "Other" choice? Always include “Other” when you suspect students might have valuable feedback not covered by your predefined answers. With a follow-up, you’ll capture diverse views you may not have considered—sometimes, these open doors to major improvements.
NPS-type question for academic advising quality
Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a fast, effective way to gauge overall satisfaction and loyalty, adapted here for academic advising. You simply ask: "How likely are you to recommend academic advising at our vocational school to a friend or classmate?" on a scale from 0 (not at all likely) to 10 (extremely likely). This single number, paired with open follow-ups, reveals both the sentiment and reasons behind the score. Our NPS survey generator for academic advising quality can set this up instantly.
The power of follow-up questions
Follow-up questions are where the magic happens—especially with complex topics like academic advising. Automated, AI-driven probing clarifies vague answers and digs into hidden concerns, all in real time. Features like AI follow-up questions are game changers.
Vocational school student: “My advisor was okay, I guess.”
AI follow-up: “Can you tell me a bit more about what felt just ‘okay’? Was there something specific missing?”
How many followups to ask? For best results, ask 2-3 follow-ups per topic, but always enable a "skip to next" option when you’ve heard enough. In Specific, you can set exactly how much detail you want, so respondents don’t get fatigued while you still get deep insights.
This makes it a conversational survey: automated follow-ups create a genuine back-and-forth, so it feels less like a form and more like a natural conversation.
AI response analysis, unstructured feedback, qualitative data: Don’t worry about analyzing free-text responses either. AI survey response analysis tools can quickly summarize and surface actionable insights from unstructured feedback, transforming messy data into clear action points.
Follow-up logic is a new approach in survey research—if you haven’t seen it in action, try generating a survey and see for yourself how it changes response quality.
How to write a prompt for ChatGPT to generate great questions
If you want to brainstorm survey questions using AI, it pays to craft targeted prompts. A simple starting prompt is:
Suggest 10 open-ended questions for Vocational School Student survey about Academic Advising Quality.
But you’ll get far better answers if you give the AI more background—like your goals, current challenges, and the decision you want to make based on the survey.
I’m running a survey for vocational school students about the quality of academic advising. Our goals are to improve advisor training and make sure everyone gets the support they need for graduation and job placement. Please suggest 10 open-ended, unbiased questions focused on students’ advisor experiences, clarity of guidance, and any suggestions for improvement.
Next, let the AI organize ideas:
Look at the questions and categorize them. Output categories with the questions under them.
Once you see the categories (for example, "Advisor responsiveness," "Guidance clarity," "Personal support"), write:
Generate 10 questions for categories Advisor responsiveness, Guidance clarity, Personal support.
What is a conversational survey?
Conversational surveys are chat-like feedback interviews powered by AI, asking real questions and following up in natural language. Unlike clunky forms or rigid polls, a conversational survey adapts in real time—prompting for clarification, encouraging details, and reacting to the respondent’s previous answers. This approach boosts engagement and data quality, as proven in peer-reviewed research on engagement with AI survey bots. [2]
Manual Surveys | AI-Generated (Conversational) |
|---|---|
Rigid, static questions | Dynamically adapts—asks follow-ups in real time |
Hard to personalize | Feels like a natural chat, friendly and relevant |
Slow to create and analyze | AI builds and analyzes survey instantly |
Easily leads to vague answers | Smart probing for specifics and context |
Respondent fatigue is common | Conversational flow keeps respondents engaged |
Why use AI for vocational school student surveys? AI-powered survey generation radically speeds up the creation process, letting you launch high-quality feedback projects with less effort. Tools like Specific’s AI survey generator use expert-made templates and smart logic to deliver more actionable results, especially for complex topics like academic advising.
Want a step-by-step walkthrough? See our guide on creating an academic advising quality survey—we outline strategy, examples, and detailed tips.
With Specific, you get the best user experience for conversational surveys, making it easy, smooth, and genuinely engaging for both the survey creator and the students giving feedback.
See this academic advising quality survey example now
Ready to reimagine feedback? Build a conversational academic advising survey that collects deeper insights, with smarter probing and faster analysis—no expertise required. Try it out and see how easy and insightful conversational surveys can be.