This article will guide you through how to create a College Doctoral Student survey about International Student Experience. You can build such a survey in seconds—just generate it and start collecting valuable feedback right away. Specific makes it seamless, so you spend less time setting things up and more time gathering insights.
Steps to create a survey for college doctoral students about international student experience
If you want to save time, just click this link to generate a survey with Specific.
Tell what survey you want.
Done.
Honestly, you don’t even need to read further. With AI, you get an expertly created survey by just describing what you need. The AI will even ask respondents smart follow-up questions automatically to gather deeper insights—making surveys feel more like real conversations.
Why run a college doctoral student survey about international student experience?
Let’s get real: if you’re not asking international doctoral students about their experiences, you’re missing out on insights that can drive genuine improvement and inclusivity. Here’s why this survey matters:
International doctoral students often face academic, financial, and social challenges, making them more vulnerable during their integration process. Ignoring these can lead to disengagement and missed opportunities for better support and retention. [6]
Research shows financial pressure, social exclusion, and cultural bias as the top three challenges overseas doctoral researchers face. Without the right feedback loop, institutions risk perpetuating these barriers. [10]
Data-driven insights help colleges adapt, close support gaps, and design initiatives that actually work—rather than relying on hunches.
Want to see what you could be missing? English-speaking international doctoral students were twice as likely to be dissatisfied with academic support (17.4% vs. 7.4%) compared to Russian-speaking students—do you know what your students think? [3]
Bottom line: regular, thoughtful surveys help you spot issues early, prevent disengagement, and empower both students and faculty to collaborate on positive change. The benefits of College Doctoral Student feedback can’t be overstated in shaping thriving academic communities.
What makes a good survey on international student experience?
Not every survey is effective. You need to design it thoughtfully so you gather honest, actionable responses—and lots of them. What works?
Clear, unbiased questions—No loaded or ambiguous language to mislead or frustrate.
Conversational tone—People are more open and genuine when it feels like a chat, not an exam.
Logical flow and context—So the questions make sense and feel natural.
Here’s a quick contrast:
Bad practices | Good practices |
|---|---|
Vague or compound questions | One clear point per question |
The true measure: you want both a high response rate and high-quality responses. When both numbers are up, you know you’ve got a survey worth running and data you can actually use.
Key question types and examples for college doctoral student survey about international student experience
Building great questions for your survey isn’t complicated, but the right formats make a big difference. Here’s what we use most often at Specific:
Open-ended questions dig deep and invite students to share genuine feelings, stories, or frustrations. Use these when you want depth and context:
What was your biggest challenge adapting to campus life as an international doctoral student?
Can you describe a time when cultural differences impacted your academic progress or well-being?
Single-select multiple-choice questions make it easy for students to respond quickly and for you to spot trends. Ideal for quantifiable topics or comparisons—like support services satisfaction:
How would you rate your access to academic support as an international doctoral student?
Excellent
Good
Fair
Poor
NPS (Net Promoter Score) question helps you measure the likelihood that students would recommend your institution to others—a strong signal of overall satisfaction. Want to see how an NPS survey works for this audience? Generate a targeted NPS survey here.
On a scale from 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend our university to other international doctoral students?
Followup questions to uncover "the why"—These are gold. Use them after a surprising or vague answer to learn what’s behind it, or when you need the full story. For example:
Student: "I struggled with integration."
Follow-up: "Can you share what specifically made integration challenging? Was it social, academic, or something else?"
If you want to go deeper, check out our full guide on best questions for college doctoral student surveys about international student experience.
What is a conversational survey — and why does it matter?
A conversational survey is built to feel like a chat, not a generic web form. You ask questions, the respondent answers, and—here’s the magic—the AI asks smart, contextual follow-ups in real time. This isn’t just a nice-to-have. AI survey generation is different from traditional surveys because it’s fast, intuitive, and adapts naturally to each participant.
Manual surveys | AI-generated surveys |
|---|---|
Time-consuming to create | Ready in seconds |
Why use AI for college doctoral student surveys? Simple: AI survey tools achieve completion rates of 70-80%, compared to 45-50% for traditional surveys. [2] Not only do you reach more respondents, but you also get clearer, more honest answers. Using a platform like Specific, you deliver best-in-class user experience in conversational surveys—for both you and your audience.
If you want step-by-step details on how to build a survey using AI, see our guide: how to create a survey.
The power of follow-up questions
Follow-up questions transform a basic survey into a dynamic, meaningful dialogue. Instead of static forms, you’re running a true conversation—exactly what Specific’s automatic AI followup questions deliver.
Here’s what happens if you don’t use AI-powered, dynamic follow-ups:
Doctoral student: "I felt unsupported."
AI follow-up: "Can you tell me more about which area you felt was lacking—academic guidance, peer support, or something else?"
Without that follow-up, the response is unclear and hard to act on. With it, you get actionable detail. Automated probing saves you from back-and-forth emails, saves time, and lets respondents clarify their unique situations—boosting both quality and quantity.
How many follow-ups to ask? In most cases, 2–3 follow-ups are enough to dig beneath the surface—while still letting respondents skip ahead if they’ve explained their point. With Specific, you control the setting so it’s always respondent-friendly.
This makes it a conversational survey: You’re not just collecting responses, you’re cultivating insight-rich conversations that matter.
AI response analysis: Don’t worry about all the extra data—Specific makes it easy to analyze everything (even long open answers) using AI. Learn more about how to analyze responses from college doctoral student survey about international student experience.
Curious what this feels like? Generate a survey and experience automated follow-ups in action—they’re a game-changer.
See this international student experience survey example now
Your next survey could be up and running in seconds. Try a conversational, AI-powered approach—collect richer insights, engage students, and make follow-up analysis effortless. Don’t settle for generic forms when you can engage your doctoral students in a real conversation.