Best questions for teacher survey about teacher mentoring

Here are some of the best questions for a teacher survey about teacher mentoring, plus actionable tips for crafting them. If you want to build this survey in seconds, Specific can help with a few clicks, streamlining the whole process.

The best open-ended questions for teacher surveys about mentoring

Open-ended questions are gold for getting authentic, qualitative insights. They let teachers share their real experiences, highlight what works, and reveal blind spots that rigid questions might miss. One study found that 76% of respondents provided detailed comments when given the option, demonstrating just how much people appreciate a chance to fully express themselves. [1] This results in richer data and deeper understanding than closed-ended questions alone.

1. What has been your most valuable experience in the teacher mentoring program?

2. How has mentoring helped you grow professionally this year?

3. Can you describe any challenges you’ve faced during the mentoring process?

4. What would you change about the current mentoring approach?

5. What additional support would help you get more from mentoring?

6. How do you feel the mentoring program impacts student learning?

7. What unique strategies have you learned from your mentor or mentee?

8. Share an example of a mentoring relationship that made a difference for you.

9. What topics or skills do you wish the mentoring covered more deeply?

10. How do you prefer to communicate and connect within the mentoring program?

Open-ended questions lead to detailed, candid responses—a crucial asset since research shows mixed-mode surveys (ratings plus open-ended questions) can predict future behavior 27% better than ratings alone. [2]

Best single-select multiple-choice questions for teacher survey about mentoring

Single-select multiple-choice questions work best when you need clear, quantifiable feedback, measure trends, or get a quick temperature check. Sometimes teachers prefer picking a quick option rather than crafting a long reply. It’s also helpful for jump-starting the conversation, with deeper follow-ups after.

Examples:

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

• Weekly

• Bi-weekly

• Monthly

• Other

Question: How satisfied are you with the guidance you receive through mentoring?

• Very satisfied

• Satisfied

• Neutral

• Dissatisfied

• Very dissatisfied

Question: Who initiates most of your mentoring conversations?

• Me (the teacher)

• My mentor

• It’s balanced

• Other

When to followup with "why?" Asking "why?" or a clarifying question after a choice is powerful when responses might mask underlying reasons. For instance, if a teacher answers "Neutral" about satisfaction, a follow-up ("Why do you feel neutral about your mentoring experience?") captures the nuances. These details often predict the success of future mentoring initiatives—and, as research notes, open follow-ups dramatically improve predictive power. [2]

When and why to add the "Other" choice? Always add "Other" when you think a fixed set of options might miss emerging perspectives. The follow-up lets teachers clarify and can uncover surprising patterns that structured options miss, feeding back valuable knowledge into the mentoring program.

NPS question for teacher mentoring surveys: should you use it?

The Net Promoter Score (NPS) measures loyalty and overall satisfaction using a single question: "How likely are you to recommend the mentoring program to a colleague?" It's widely used to benchmark feedback, spot trends, and prioritize improvements. For teacher mentoring, an NPS question offers a simple but powerful pulse on how engaged or satisfied teachers feel, and how likely the program is to generate positive word-of-mouth.

Curious how it works? Try generating an NPS survey for teacher mentoring and experience just how revealing a single question—paired with a follow-up—can be.

The power of follow-up questions

Automated follow-up questions are the backbone of a strong conversational survey. They’re what make your survey feel less like a form and more like a real, curious dialogue. Check out this quick guide to automated AI follow-up questions that collect richer, contextual insights without extra manual effort.

Specific’s engine uses AI to ask smart, real-time follow-up questions based on a respondent’s previous answer. It’s like having a research expert clarifying and probing just enough, at the moment, saving you from chasing down teachers via endless email threads. It makes surveys less static, more natural—and way more effective at digging out the “why” behind every answer.

• Teacher: "I rarely meet with my mentor."

• AI follow-up: "What makes scheduling meetings challenging for you?"

• Teacher: "I'm satisfied."

• AI follow-up: "Can you share an example of what worked well in your mentoring experience?"

How many followups to ask? We find that two or three targeted follow-ups per question hit the sweet spot: enough to get depth, but not so many that respondents tire out. Specific’s survey builder lets you set limits and skip to the next key question once the essential input is collected—keeping the conversation moving and respectful of teachers’ time.

This makes it a conversational survey: the whole experience is genuinely interactive, so teachers don’t feel like their feedback is vanishing into a void—they’re understood and heard.

AI analysis, survey response themes, qualitative insight: With all these rich, open-text responses, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. But with built-in analytics like AI survey response analysis and the ability to analyze open-ended answers quickly, you can uncover actionable themes from even the most complex feedback—no manual coding required.

Automated follow-up questions are a breakthrough for conversational surveys, and the best way to understand your teachers is to generate one and see the process firsthand.

How to prompt ChatGPT (or any AI) for great teacher mentoring survey questions

Let’s demystify prompt writing for survey creation. Start simple—a focused prompt gets you 80% there. For example:

Suggest 10 open-ended questions for Teacher survey about Teacher Mentoring.

But AI works best with context. If you tell it a bit about your school’s culture, the goal of the mentoring, or your urgent problems, the questions will get sharper:

Our school has a new teacher mentoring program focused on collaboration and instructional coaching. Suggest 10 open-ended questions to help us measure the impact, understand challenges, and guide improvements.

Once you have a list, iterate:

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

Then go deeper into the areas that matter most to you:

Generate 10 questions for categories communication, professional growth, and mentor-mentee relationship building.

The Specific AI survey generator comes pre-trained on these techniques—saving you even more guesswork and editing.

What makes a survey conversational? Why AI surveys win.

A conversational survey is all about dynamic back-and-forth—survey questions adapt to teachers’ individual responses, and follow-ups feel more like coffee chats than interrogation. The real magic? AI-powered survey builders make this easy, while traditional surveys still require manual tweaking, setup, and extensive analysis after collecting data.

Why use AI for teacher surveys? You can get much deeper feedback, faster, with less work—even from busy teachers who prefer quick, context-rich conversations over long, stale forms. AI surveys like Specific’s aren’t just easier for respondents; they also enable teams to capture unfiltered feedback, automatically summarize results, and connect insights across many responses.

If you want to make the feedback process smoother and more engaging, explore our tips for creating a teacher mentoring survey step-by-step—or jump into Specific for the best-in-class conversational survey experience.

See this teacher mentoring survey example now

Get instant, authentic feedback from teachers by trying an AI-powered conversational survey today. Capture insights that matter, spark real dialogue, and let Specific handle the heavy lifting.