Here are some of the best questions you can ask in a college doctoral student survey about authorship practices, plus practical tips for designing them—if you want to build your own survey or generate a tailored set of questions in seconds, Specific can help you create a fully conversational AI survey for this exact audience and topic.
Best open-ended questions for a college doctoral student survey about authorship practices
Open-ended questions unlock insights you rarely get from simple checkboxes. When students can express their real experiences around authorship practices, you’ll spot emerging themes, unexpected pain points, and differing cultural norms. These questions work best when you’re diagnosing problems, tracking emerging practices, or interested in lived experience from different fields. In fact, a 2024 study showed that only 24% of U.S. doctoral universities publicly share their authorship policies—underlining just how understudied and nuanced this topic is [1].
Can you describe how authorship order is typically determined in your research group or department?
Have you ever experienced or witnessed disagreements about authorship assignment? What happened?
What criteria do you believe should determine who qualifies as an author on a scholarly paper?
How are contributions acknowledged when someone does not meet authorship criteria?
Have you received formal or informal guidance about authorship practices during your doctoral studies?
In your view, how transparent is the authorship decision-making process within your academic environment?
What challenges have you encountered regarding authorship in your research collaborations?
How has the use of artificial intelligence tools influenced authorship discussions in your group, if at all?
Can you share an example of positive or fair authorship negotiation you've experienced?
If you could change one thing about how authorship is handled in your field, what would it be?
Best single-select multiple-choice questions for a doctoral student survey about authorship practices
Single-select multiple-choice questions work when you want to quantify common practices, spot trends, or gently guide respondents toward reflection. These are perfect for starting a conversation or collecting data at scale—respondents often prefer ticking a box over composing paragraphs, especially on mobile devices. Sometimes, these questions lower the barrier and help you pinpoint which topics are worth diving deeper on with follow-up prompts.
Question: How familiar are you with your university’s official authorship policy?
Very familiar
Somewhat familiar
Not familiar
Unsure if one exists
Question: Who typically decides the order of authors on your research papers?
Lead advisor or principal investigator
Research team consensus
Project lead or main writer
Other
Question: Have you used AI tools as part of your research or writing process?
Yes, often
Yes, occasionally
No
Not sure
When to follow up with "why?" Always consider a follow-up when someone’s choice could have a variety of motivations. For example, if a respondent says “Research team consensus” to an authorship order question, ask “Why do you think your team chose consensus? What works or doesn’t?” This approach uncovers logic, emotions, and context you’d otherwise miss.
When and why to add the "Other" choice? Sometimes pre-set choices won’t fit every student’s situation—adding “Other” enables students to explain unique or unconventional scenarios in their own words. Follow-up questions here often reveal new practices or challenges you never considered.
NPS question: Would an NPS-style metric make sense for studying doctoral student authorship practices?
NPS, or Net Promoter Score, asks how likely someone is to recommend a practice or environment to peers, usually on a 0–10 scale. For authorship practices, it can work as a pulse check: “How likely are you to recommend your research group’s authorship practices to incoming doctoral students?” Following up—“What’s the strongest reason for your score?”—surfaces areas for improvement or celebration. If you want to try this, you can generate an NPS survey for doctoral student authorship practices with one click.
The power of follow-up questions
Effective surveys hinge on follow-up questions. Automated follow-ups—like those built into Specific’s platform—enable you to probe when a response is vague, clarify when something is unclear, or double-click to unpack surprising views. It’s not just about data volume but the depth and relevance of what you learn.
Specific’s AI asks smart, context-aware follow-ups in real time. This is game changing: imagine emailing respondents later to clarify “What did you mean by ‘sometimes fair’?”—it’s slow and risks losing their context and motivation. Automated, conversational follow-ups quickly gather the full story, enriching every response. And, as users of AI tools in academia spike—86% of students use AI in their studies, with 24% using it daily [2]—these smart surveys meet people where they are.
Doctoral student: “Our team just follows the advisor’s lead, most of the time.”
AI follow-up: “Would you want more input into the authorship process? Why or why not?”
How many follow-ups to ask? Two to three follow-up questions per main prompt work well—balance digging deeper with keeping the survey engaging. Specific lets you control this, including options to move forward once you have the insight you need.
This makes it a conversational survey: the automated, real-time probing transforms your survey into a dynamic, engaging chat that adapts to each respondent.
AI survey analysis is easy: Even if you gather rich, unstructured feedback, analyzing qualitative survey responses with AI is incredibly fast and revealing: AI summarizes common themes and lets you ask questions about your data instantly.
Try generating an AI conversational survey of your own—you’ll quickly see how follow-ups upgrade your student research to the next level.
Prompting ChatGPT (or other AIs) to generate great survey questions about authorship practices
If you want to use ChatGPT or a similar tool to brainstorm questions for your college doctoral student authorship practices survey, start with something simple:
Suggest 10 open-ended questions for college doctoral student survey about authorship practices.
But you’ll get much better questions if you provide more detail, like your purpose, desired question types, or respondent context:
Imagine I am a graduate program coordinator designing a survey for doctoral students across multiple disciplines, aiming to understand current challenges, best practices, and attitudes toward academic authorship. Suggest 10 nuanced open-ended questions, plus a few multiple-choice questions for quantifiable insights. Keep the phrasing student-friendly and clear.
Next, refine your list:
Look at the questions and categorize them. Output categories with the questions under them.
Finally, drill down into key themes or gaps you want to explore further:
Generate 10 questions for categories of “AI influence on authorship” and “departmental guidance.”
What is a conversational survey and why use an AI survey generator?
If you’ve ever filled out a survey form and felt it was a chore, you’ve seen the difference between a form and a conversation. AI-powered, conversational surveys—like those built in Specific—not only feel more natural, but gather richer and more nuanced insights. Here’s a quick side-by-side:
Manual Survey Creation | AI-Generated Conversational Survey |
|---|---|
Brainstorm & draft every question manually | Generate relevant, research-backed questions instantly from a simple prompt |
Static: fixed order, no follow-ups | Dynamic: smart follow-ups ask “why” or “how” in real time |
Time-consuming to edit or localize | Edit or refine by chatting with AI and easily run surveys in multiple languages |
Harder to engage distracted respondents | Feels like a chat—respects respondent time, boosts engagement |
Why use AI for college doctoral student surveys? AI survey generation removes mental overhead, produces methodologically sound question sets, and supports real-time probing for richer data. For a sensitive and evolving topic like doctoral authorship, conversational surveys let you adapt, clarify, and build trust with students—while freeing up time to focus on analysis and impact. With AI survey examples—especially conversational ones—you set a higher standard for insight and engagement.
Specific offers a top-notch experience for both creators and respondents—smooth, mobile-friendly, and designed for deep feedback. If you want to see how to create conversational surveys from scratch or using templates, check out our hands-on guide.
See this authorship practices survey example now
Discover how conversational AI unlocks the fullest picture of doctoral authorship practices, in a fast, natural, and engaging way—get started to experience deeper insights instantly.