Best questions for student survey about work-study experience

Here are some of the best questions for a Student survey about Work-Study Experience, plus tips on how to craft them for maximum insights. With Specific, you can build surveys like these in just seconds—no expertise required.

Best open-ended questions for Student survey about Work-Study Experience

Open-ended questions let students express their real feelings and experiences; they're especially useful when you want candid, nuanced insights that can guide programs and support systems. AI-driven conversational surveys excel at getting richer, more specific responses compared to traditional forms, resulting in more actionable insights. A peer-reviewed study even found that AI-powered chatbots elicited answers that were more informative and clearer than standard forms. [4]

1. What motivated you to participate in a work-study program?

2. Can you describe a typical day balancing your academic and work responsibilities?

3. What challenges have you encountered while managing your work-study role and coursework?

4. In what ways has your work-study experience contributed to your personal and professional growth?

5. How supported did you feel by your school or employer throughout your work-study placement?

6. What resources or changes would have improved your work-study experience?

7. Can you share an example of a problem you solved during your work-study job?

8. How has your work-study job influenced your future career plans?

9. What advice would you give to other students starting a work-study role?

10. Is there anything about your work-study experience that surprised you—good or bad?

Best single-select multiple-choice questions for Student survey about Work-Study Experience

Single-select multiple-choice questions are great for quantifying experience or getting quick “pulse” reads, making it easier for students to respond with minimal friction. These are also perfect as ice-breakers, paving the way for more in-depth feedback through open-ended or follow-up questions. Sometimes, giving a set of options lowers the cognitive load on respondents—especially if they’re short on time, or not sure how to start articulating a response.

Question: How would you rate the overall impact of your work-study experience on your academic life?

• Very positive

• Somewhat positive

• Neutral

• Somewhat negative

• Very negative

Question: Which aspect of your work-study job benefitted you most?

• Learning new skills

• Networking opportunities

• Financial support

• Time-management improvement

• Other

Question: What was the biggest challenge you faced in your work-study job?

• Balancing work and study

• Workload at the job

• Lack of support

• Scheduling conflicts

• Other

When to follow up with "why?" It's good to probe deeper when someone picks a response that could mean different things or doesn't tell the full story. For example, if a student says "Scheduling conflicts" were the biggest challenge, follow up with, “Why was scheduling a challenge for you?” You’ll often uncover valuable details and root causes that help you take action.

When and why to add the "Other" choice? Always offer “Other” in your lists—sometimes the best insights come from responses you didn’t anticipate. In those cases, you can ask a follow-up question like, “Can you describe what ‘Other’ means for you?” to dig into new or unexpected feedback.

Using NPS questions in Student work-study experience surveys

Net Promoter Score (NPS) questions aren’t just for businesses—you can use them to measure how likely students are to recommend the work-study program to their peers. This single question gives you a clean, trackable loyalty metric and, paired with follow-up questions, uncovers the “why” behind their score. It’s a valuable snapshot of overall satisfaction and advocacy potential. Want to try it? Generate a tailored NPS survey for students in seconds on Specific.

The power of follow-up questions

Follow-up questions are where the real gold lies. They turn half-baked replies into a rich conversation—surfacing detail, motivations, and context you’d never capture with static forms. Think of it as moving from “survey as a checklist” to a real, insightful interview. For a deep dive on this, see how automated followup questions work.

Specific uses AI to ask smart, conversational follow-ups in real time, adapting based on each student's prior response and context—just like a skilled interviewer would. This saves time hunting down clarifications through emails or additional surveys, and makes the experience much more natural for students. Thanks to this approach, AI surveys regularly achieve completion rates of 70–80%, compared with just 45–50% for traditional forms [1], and reduce abandonment rates dramatically [2].

• Student: It was okay, but not what I expected.

• AI follow-up: Can you tell me what you expected and how your actual experience was different?

How many followups to ask? Generally, 2–3 follow-ups are enough to uncover the real story. You can set a limit or let the conversation proceed until you get a meaningful answer. Specific lets you customize this based on your goals or enable students to skip ahead if they’ve said enough.

This makes it a conversational survey: Instead of firing questions and hoping for the best, these dynamic AI followups make surveys feel like a genuine conversation—engaging, personalized, and real-time.

AI survey response analysis, unstructured text, large scale insights: Analyzing open-text answers used to be overwhelming, but with AI survey response analysis it's easy; you can have the AI summarize, extract themes, and even chat about your data. Want to see how? Learn about AI-powered analysis for student work-study surveys.

Automated, dynamic follow-ups are a new standard—try generating a survey and see firsthand how much richer and more actionable your results can be.

How to compose prompts for ChatGPT (or any GPT) to create great Student work-study experience survey questions

If you want great survey questions—fast—AI can help, but the quality depends on your prompt. Start simple and add context to get even better results. For example:

First, ask for a general list:

Suggest 10 open-ended questions for Student survey about Work-Study Experience.

Adding more context helps the AI tailor the questions:

We’re preparing a survey for final-year university students who recently completed their first work-study term, focused on how well they could balance academics and employment. Suggest 10 open-ended questions to explore both challenges and benefits.

Next, ask the AI to help you organize the questions for better coverage:

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

Finally, double down on the themes that matter for your case:

Generate 10 questions for categories “Work-life balance” and “Skill development.”

What is a conversational survey?

A conversational survey feels like a real back-and-forth discussion—not a cold form or generic poll. Instead of firing off a long list of questions, the survey adapts in real time. Follow-up questions are targeted, clarifications are instant, and students feel more valued. This is a big part of why AI-powered surveys through Specific achieve much higher response rates and richer insights.

Why use AI for Student surveys? AI survey tools not only save you time in creation and analysis—they let you scale your feedback, reach more students, and instantly surface new ideas or problems. You can generate, customize, and deploy full conversational surveys with a few words, easily making updates via tools like the AI survey editor. For user experience, Specific stands out by making student surveys feel like a natural chat, rather than an interrogation.

An AI survey example or conversational survey is a gamechanger: you quickly unlock specific, actionable trends, and you can iterate or analyze surveys on the fly.

Ready to learn more? Check out the step-by-step guide to creating a conversational student survey for work-study experience.

See this Work-Study Experience survey example now

Get rapid, in-depth insights from students with AI-powered, conversational surveys—designed for higher completion, richer context, and real action. See what a fully conversational survey can do for your work-study program today.