Here are some of the best questions for an online course student survey about interactive elements quality, plus quick tips for building stronger surveys. You can generate your own tailored survey with Specific in seconds.
Best open-ended questions for interactive elements quality feedback
Open-ended questions let students explain their experience in their own words. While they sometimes get lower response rates than closed-ended questions, they often capture richer stories and actionable insights—especially valuable for understanding how interactive activities are landing in your course. For example, structured open-ended feedback has proven to increase informativeness, relevance, and clarity compared to rigid survey formats [2].
What specific interactive features in this course have helped you learn the most? Please explain how they worked for you.
Can you describe an interactive element that felt confusing or unhelpful?
How do the quizzes, polls, or activities affect your engagement during lessons?
Were there moments you wanted more interaction? When and why?
Which type of interactive content (like videos, quizzes, forums, or live exercises) did you find least useful, and what would you change?
Share an example of when interactive content motivated you to continue learning.
What suggestions do you have to improve the interactive parts of this course?
Is there an interactive feature from another online course you wish we’d included here?
Did you notice technical issues with any interactive elements? If yes, please describe.
How comfortable did you feel participating in group activities or discussions? What influenced this?
Despite higher nonresponse rates for open-ended questions (with some averaging over 18% nonresponse [1]), where students do respond, the detail and insight can far outweigh what you get from a basic rating scale.
Best single-select multiple-choice questions for interactive elements quality
Single-select multiple-choice questions are effective when you need to spot trends or quickly quantify opinions. They add structure, making it easy for students to answer and for you to analyze results. Sometimes, starting with a simple choice helps ease students in—then open-ended or follow-up questions can uncover deeper specifics.
Question: How would you rate the overall quality of interactive elements in this course?
Excellent
Good
Fair
Poor
Question: Which interactive element did you find most engaging?
Quizzes
Discussion forums
Live exercises
Other
Question: Did you feel there were enough interactive activities in the course?
Yes, just right
No, too few
No, too many
When to followup with "why?" When you spot a potentially vague or emotionally loaded response (“fair” or “poor" quality), a natural follow-up like "Why did you select this rating?" can reveal what’s really behind the choice. This context turns a simple tally into actionable feedback, and automated AI follow-ups save everyone time by digging deeper instantly.
When and why to add the "Other" choice? “Other” is helpful when your list of options may not cover all perspectives. Follow-up questions can then surface unexpected insights you never considered—sometimes these become your next feature or teaching innovation.
NPS survey question for course interactive elements
NPS, or Net Promoter Score, is a single question that asks students how likely they are to recommend your course based on its interactive elements. It’s quick, familiar, and highly effective for benchmarking overall satisfaction. For online learning, NPS gives you a pulse on how well your activities engage and empower students compared to expectations. If you want to start, create an NPS survey now.
NPS also works well alongside detailed questions, helping to segment students for targeted follow-ups—promoters, passives, and detractors each see personalized probes so you gather focused feedback.
The power of follow-up questions
If you want more context and clearer insights from online course students, follow-up questions make a massive difference. Research shows that AI-assisted conversational interviews using dynamic probing generate richer, more specific responses than static surveys [3]. That’s why Specific’s AI-powered follow-ups feel like having a live expert in the conversation—and why our automated follow-up feature is so transformative for feedback collection.
Student: "The quizzes were helpful."
AI follow-up: "Can you share which quiz was most helpful and why it stood out to you?"
Without that follow-up, all you know is that some quizzes were helpful. With it, you can identify exactly which interactions work—and what makes them effective.
How many followups to ask? Generally, asking two to three targeted follow-up questions is enough. If you’ve gathered the detail you need, survey logic can naturally skip to the next topic. Specific lets you fine-tune this flow with customizable intensity settings, so you don’t overwhelm respondents or let valuable insights slip away.
This makes it a conversational survey: Instead of a static form, the survey adapts to the conversation, guiding students toward richer answers while feeling natural and low-pressure.
AI survey response analysis: Even with lots of open text, tools like AI survey response analysis make it easy to summarize and extract key themes, instead of drowning in unstructured feedback.
These modern automated follow-up questions are changing survey culture. Try building a survey and see how much you learn from a single, chat-style conversation.
How to prompt ChatGPT for survey question ideas
If you want to use AI to generate even more questions for your interactive elements survey, start with a direct prompt in ChatGPT:
Suggest 10 open-ended questions for Online Course Student survey about Interactive Elements Quality.
But you’ll get the best results if you provide extra context, like your teaching style, course subject, and what you hope to change:
I teach an online business course with live and recorded lessons. Students fit lessons around their work schedules, and I want to improve interactive activities like quizzes and group discussions to boost engagement. Suggest 10 open-ended questions I should ask my students.
Once you have your list, refine it:
Look at the questions and categorize them. Output categories with the questions under them.
Then, focus deeper:
Generate 10 questions for categories "group work" and "quiz activities".
With each cycle, the AI becomes more specific and tailored—mirroring the custom flows you can create with Specific’s AI survey builder and editor.
What is a conversational survey?
A conversational survey mimics a chat, asking questions, following up in real time, and adapting based on each answer. This active listening feels like a real conversation—not a static checklist. With AI survey generation, you can launch a feedback experience in minutes, compared to hours spent building manual forms, and respondents feel more engaged [2].
Manual Surveys | AI-generated Surveys |
|---|---|
Clunky forms, hard to update | Editable and dynamic in real time |
Responses feel impersonal | Feels like a human conversation |
Hard to analyze open-ended responses | Automatic AI insights and summaries |
Low engagement, higher dropout | High engagement and completion rates [2] |
Why use AI for online course student surveys? Unlike traditional survey builders, AI-powered tools can adapt to each respondent, surface hidden insights with follow-up questions, and instantly analyze feedback for actionable improvements. With Specific’s conversational survey tools, you’ll deliver a best-in-class user experience—smooth and engaging for everyone.
If you want a step-by-step guide, read our overview on how to create an interactive elements survey for online course students.
See this interactive elements quality survey example now
See how much richer feedback you can collect in just minutes—our conversational surveys keep students engaged, help you dig deeper, and make analysis effortless. Try it now and transform your course with meaningful, actionable insights.