Here are some of the best questions for a college doctoral student survey about conference and travel support, plus tips on how to create them. With Specific, you can build a tailored survey in seconds—just generate and customize it to your needs.
Best open-ended questions for college doctoral student survey about conference and travel support
Open-ended questions uncover meaningful stories and unique perspectives. They’re excellent for discovering gaps in support, surfacing pain points, and gathering suggestions—essential for policy and funding decisions at universities. If you’re aiming for depth or want to hear student voices directly, these questions are your go-to choice.
What factors influence your decision to apply for conference and travel support?
Can you describe a recent experience applying for travel funding? What went well or what was challenging?
How has conference and travel support impacted your academic or career progress?
If you’ve not requested travel support before, what factors prevented you from applying?
What would make the conference funding application process easier for you?
Have you ever had to decline a conference opportunity due to lack of support? Tell us about that situation.
How clearly do you understand the eligibility criteria and fund allocation policies at your institution?
What improvements would you suggest to the current travel and conference funding policies?
Can you share feedback on the communication regarding available funding opportunities?
Are there additional types of conference-related expenses you wish were covered by travel support?
For context: University travel support is highly variable. For example, Duke University covers up to 70% of conference expenses with a $700 cap for international trips, while other institutions like Florida State University and Georgetown offer grant amounts from $500 to $1,000, with different requirements for presenters versus attendees [1] [2] [3]. Open-ended questions help surface how such policies translate into real student experiences.
Best single-select multiple-choice questions for college doctoral student survey about conference and travel support
Single-select multiple-choice questions are ideal when you want to quantify trends, benchmark needs, or kick off a conversation. Structured options reduce response burden, making it easy for students to share specifics—especially useful when you need scalable survey data, or to guide follow-ups for richer feedback.
Question: How often have you sought conference or travel funding in the past academic year?
Never
Once
Two to three times
More than three times
Question: What is your primary reason for attending conferences?
Presenting research
Networking
Skill development/workshops
Other
Question: Which types of expenses have you struggled to get reimbursed for?
Travel (flights, trains, etc.)
Lodging
Registration fees
Meals
Other
When to follow up with "why?" If a student selects “Never” for funding applications, a follow-up like “Why haven’t you applied for travel support?” uncovers barriers such as lack of information or eligibility confusion. Adding a "why" generates qualitative insight alongside quantitative data, deepening your understanding and allowing for targeted improvements.
When and why to add the "Other" choice? Always consider an “Other” option when your list of answers can’t feasibly cover every scenario. Follow-up questions (“Please specify”) after "Other" let you capture unique cases or policy gaps. These unexpected findings can often shape smarter travel support initiatives.
NPS question for conference and travel support: Should you use it?
Net Promoter Score (NPS) isn’t just for products—it measures loyalty, satisfaction, and advocacy. In this context, an NPS question gauges how likely doctoral students are to recommend their institution’s conference and travel support to peers, highlighting broader satisfaction and pain points.
For travel support, ask: “On a scale of 0-10, how likely are you to recommend your institution’s conference and travel funding to another doctoral student?” With Specific, you can launch a ready-made NPS survey for college doctoral students about conference and travel support in seconds: build an NPS survey.
NPS not only benchmarks satisfaction against peer institutions, but also helps rally administrative momentum for program changes, since scores are easy to communicate to leadership.
The power of follow-up questions
Follow-up questions transform a survey from static form to insightful conversation. Automated probing—like those made possible by Specific’s AI follow-up questions—means you dig deeper on unclear or short answers, capturing richer context and real motivations. AI-generated follow-ups respond in real time based on each participant’s replies, just as an expert interviewer would. This ensures critical context never slips through the cracks.
Doctoral student: “I wasn’t aware travel funding existed.”
AI follow-up: “What would have helped you discover available travel funding opportunities earlier?”
Doctoral student: “Application was complicated.”
AI follow-up: “Can you describe which part of the application process you found most challenging?”
Automated follow-ups save time (compared to email chains or manual interviews) and make the survey feel like a true conversation. This approach surfaces details like communication gaps or policy pain points, especially valuable when institutions' support structures differ as much as Duke’s, FSU’s, or DoD fellowships [1] [2] [4].
How many follow-ups to ask? In practice, two to three well-targeted follow-up questions provide enough depth without causing fatigue. It’s a smart default, while still letting respondents skip ahead if they’ve shared what’s needed. Specific lets you easily configure this logic for every survey.
This makes it a conversational survey, engaging students in dialogue rather than forcing them through a rigid form—naturally increasing completion rates and data quality.
AI survey response analysis: Even if you collect lots of open-ended answers, AI tools like Specific’s response analysis feature make it easy to review, synthesize, and surface recurring themes across student input. Don’t let rich feedback gather dust.
Automated conversational follow-ups are a breakthrough—generate a survey and see the difference in your insights.
How to compose better prompts for ChatGPT or other GPTs
If you want to leverage AI to draft great survey questions, a precise prompt makes all the difference. Start simple, but then use context to guide the AI toward relevance and value.
Start with a baseline prompt that covers your target group and topic:
Suggest 10 open-ended questions for college doctoral student survey about conference and travel support.
But you’ll get better results with richer context. For example:
“Our university provides varying funding amounts for students to attend academic conferences. We want to understand student experience with applying for and receiving this support, especially pain points and desired improvements. Please suggest 10 open-ended survey questions.”
Our graduate school offers $500 to $1,000 travel grants with distinct processes for attending vs. presenting. Suggest 10 questions to uncover barriers in accessing these funds and how the process impacts doctoral students’ academic progress.
Next, ask the AI to help you structure or refine survey content:
Look at the questions and categorize them. Output categories with the questions under them.
Once you review categories, drill into areas of most interest:
Generate 10 questions for “application process and barriers” and “impact of funding on academic progress.”
The more context you share with the AI, the more thoughtful, on-target questions you’ll receive—no need to brainstorm from scratch.
What is a conversational survey?
A conversational survey turns traditional forms into interactive, chat-driven interviews—powered by AI. Instead of ticking boxes or scrolling through static pages, students respond one-on-one in a chat, receiving smart follow-ups, clarifications, or even encouragement to elaborate.
This new survey experience is transforming data collection and quality, especially for nuanced feedback like doctoral travel support. Here’s a quick comparison:
Manual Surveys | AI-Generated Conversational Surveys |
|---|---|
Static questions, rigid paths | Adaptive flow, dynamic follow-ups |
Manual editing and logic setup | Easy editing in chat via AI survey editor (see AI survey maker) |
Difficult to analyze open feedback | Instant AI insights from qualitative answers (AI survey response analysis) |
Lower engagement/completion | Higher engagement, feels like chat |
Why use AI for college doctoral student surveys? AI-built surveys learn from best practices and institutional context, saving you time and yielding stronger, more actionable insights from your doctoral students—without manual follow-up or data wrangling. An AI survey example focuses on deepening feedback and surfacing previously hidden barriers or needs.
Specific leads with best-in-class user experience for conversational surveys, making gathering and analyzing honest student feedback frictionless—whether you’re investigating travel grants or optimizing other academic resources. Read our how-to guide for creating doctoral student surveys about travel support for a step-by-step approach.
See this conference and travel support survey example now
Get actionable feedback on conference and travel support by launching a conversational survey tailored for doctoral students. See the smartest insights, real-time follow-ups, and streamlined response analysis—all powered by Specific’s AI-driven survey maker.