Best questions for student survey about peer mentoring

Here are some of the best questions for a Student survey about peer mentoring, plus our favorite tips on crafting questions that actually get real insights. With Specific, you can build this survey in seconds—just generate your own custom survey, complete with conversational follow-ups powered by AI.

What are the best open-ended questions for student survey about peer mentoring?

Open-ended questions give students space to share what's on their minds—useful for surfacing honest feedback and unexpected insights. These are best when you want in-depth thoughts, not just "yes" or "no" answers. This is especially powerful for peer mentoring surveys, since students' experiences and needs are diverse and nuanced.

• Open-ended responses help us understand the "why" and the emotions behind the numbers.

• Peer mentoring research shows that these programs drive meaningful improvements in both academic scores and emotional wellbeing, so capturing the context is critical. For example, studies show peer mentoring can yield a mean improvement of 5.14 points in academic performance for participants, a statistically significant benefit over non-participants. [1]

1. What aspects of the peer mentoring program have been most helpful for you this semester?

2. Can you describe an experience where your mentor (or mentee) supported your learning or personal growth?

3. How do you feel peer mentoring has influenced your motivation or confidence in school?

4. What challenges have you faced while participating in peer mentoring, and how have you tried to overcome them?

5. In what ways has your relationship with your mentor or mentee changed over time?

6. Is there anything you wish the peer mentoring program would do differently next year?

7. How has working with your mentor or mentee helped you manage stress or any academic pressures?

8. What advice would you give new students considering joining the peer mentoring program?

9. Are there skills or activities you wish the program offered that it currently does not?

10. Can you share a specific moment that made you feel proud or accomplished in this program?

Best single-select multiple-choice questions for student survey about peer mentoring

Single-select multiple-choice questions are great when you want to quickly quantify responses or nudge respondents to pick from common scenarios, making it easy for them to start sharing. These questions reduce friction, especially if students are unsure how to articulate their answers from scratch. They're excellent for analyzing trends across a large group, and can also open up more detailed follow-ups.

Example questions and choices:

Question: How often do you meet with your mentor or mentee?

• Weekly

• Bi-weekly

• Monthly

• Rarely

Question: Which area of support have you benefited from most in peer mentoring?

• Academic guidance

• Social/emotional support

• Motivation and encouragement

• Practical study strategies

• Other

Question: How likely are you to recommend the peer mentoring program to another student?

• Very likely

• Somewhat likely

• Not likely

When to follow up with "why?" Adding a "why?" as a follow-up uncovers the reasoning behind choices. For instance, if a student selects "Very likely" for recommending the program, asking "Why did you choose this answer?" will provide details that help us understand motivating factors or potential hesitations.

When and why to add the "Other" choice? If you want to discover needs or experiences you didn't anticipate, "Other" opens a path for unexpected insights. Adding a follow-up ("Please describe:") lets students describe their experience in their own words—this is often where you find patterns you wouldn't have identified otherwise.

Should you use an NPS question for peer mentoring surveys?

The Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a proven, simple way to gauge overall satisfaction and likelihood to recommend a program. For student surveys about peer mentoring, it's a quick pulse on whether your community is thriving—and it gives you a single benchmark to track progress over time.

• Studies have found that programs with positive peer mentoring relationships also correlate with higher motivation and hope among students. [3]

NPS questions for students might look like: "On a scale from 0–10, how likely are you to recommend the peer mentoring program to a friend?" Gather specifics in follow-ups: "What was the main reason for your score?"

If you want to instantly create this type of survey, try our NPS peer mentoring survey generator.

The power of follow-up questions

Open-ended questions alone are powerful, but real clarity comes from dynamic follow-up questions that dig deeper. We've written more about this in our guide to automated follow-up questions.

Specific uses AI to ask smart, conversational follow-ups based on every answer, in real time. This is what makes surveys feel like actual conversations—not just forms. Automated follow-ups not only save teams from endless back-and-forth emails, but they ensure you consistently capture complete, actionable insights.

• Student: "I liked having someone to talk to when I was stressed."

• AI follow-up: "Can you tell me more about a specific moment when talking with your mentor helped you manage stress?"

How many follow-ups to ask? From experience, 2–3 targeted follow-ups per question are typically enough to get all the context you need, especially when using a setting to skip ahead once a clear answer is reached. Specific lets you control this for each question.

This makes it a conversational survey—not just a static questionnaire. The conversation adapts, ensuring students share stories and specifics they'd seldom write in a normal form.

AI-powered analysis, summaries, and themes: With so much unstructured feedback, it used to be tough to analyze at scale. Today with AI, analyzing responses for trends, emerging concerns, and actionable opportunities is easier than ever. AI helps synthesize everything into digestible, easy-to-action reports.

These automated follow-up sequences are a new concept—give our peer mentoring survey builder a try to experience how much richer your data will be.

How to prompt ChatGPT (or other GPTs) to generate great peer mentoring survey questions

You can use AI tools like ChatGPT for an idea boost—getting survey questions quickly. The more context you give, the better the questions. Start broad, then refine. Here's how:

To get a basic list of questions:

Suggest 10 open-ended questions for Student survey about Peer Mentoring.

To get more tailored, higher-quality questions, set the scene:

I'm designing a survey for students at a university who have participated in a peer mentoring program. My goal is to understand both their academic and emotional growth, learn about any challenges they faced, and collect actionable ideas for improving the program. Please suggest 10 detailed, open-ended questions for this specific context.

To organize ideas into themes:

Look at the questions and categorize them. Output categories with the questions under them.

To dive deeper into a specific category:

Generate 10 questions for the category "Emotional Benefits of Peer Mentoring".

Review the output and keep refining. With tools like Specific’s AI survey generator, you can build and edit your list right in the chat—just describe the changes you want, and the AI will rewrite and reorder questions for you.

What is a conversational survey?

A conversational survey mimics a real, two-way chat—asking questions and instantly adding personalized follow-ups based on previous answers. The goal: capture the whole story, not just tick boxes. With AI survey tools like Specific, you build these in minutes—something that would take hours to script by hand.

Here's a quick comparison:

Why use AI for student surveys? When you really want to understand the effect of programs like peer mentoring, AI-powered, conversational survey tools let you move fast, get richer feedback, and analyze it in seconds instead of days. With student populations, conversational surveys see better completion rates and more detailed responses.

Looking for another AI survey example or want to see how a peer mentoring conversational survey works? Specific offers a best-in-class, easy-to-use builder and feedback flows. Experience what a true, engaging interaction looks like—and why students respond so much more honestly when surveys feel like chats instead of exams.

Want the step-by-step? Check our guide on how to create a student peer mentoring survey.

See this peer mentoring survey example now

Don't miss your chance to collect deeper insights with a conversational peer mentoring survey—see how AI-generated questions and automated follow-ups can transform your student feedback into actionable improvement ideas.