This article will guide you how to create a student survey about textbook costs—faster and smarter than you might think. Specific makes it incredibly easy to build an engaging student survey on textbook costs in seconds, thanks to AI-powered survey creation. Let’s dive in.
Steps to create a survey for students about textbook costs
If you want to save time, just generate a survey with Specific—it’s ridiculously simple:
Tell what survey you want.
Done.
That’s it—seriously. You don’t even need to finish this article unless you want extra tips. Our AI takes care of the rest, baking in expert knowledge for high-impact surveys. It also asks smart follow-up questions to get more context and richer insights, so you get the real story behind each response. Try it on the AI survey generator if you want to explore more survey ideas or custom topics—all without manual grunt work.
Why bother? The importance of student surveys on textbook costs
If you’re not running these surveys, you’re missing out on voices that really matter—student feedback on textbook costs directly impacts educational outcomes and policy decisions. Let’s ground this in reality with data:
65% of students skipped purchasing textbooks or course materials due to high costs, a staggering figure that should grab any educator or administrator’s attention. [1]
Access barriers don’t stop there: a study found that 57% of students took fewer courses and 53% avoided registering for specific classes because of material costs. [3]
Making the effort to send out a well-designed survey can mean the difference between retaining engaged students and leaving them to struggle in silence. If you don’t ask, you’ll never know why students are disengaged or what’s actually blocking their success. The benefits of student feedback go beyond altruism; they point directly to actionable improvements—lower costs, better access, stronger outcomes. Understanding why textbook costs hurt students can guide your next steps, inform advocacy, and justify institutional change. Don’t sit on the sidelines while critical opportunities pass you by.
What makes a good survey on textbook costs?
Not all surveys are created equal. To maximize both the quantity and quality of responses, you need clear, unbiased questions written in a conversational tone. Students are far more likely to answer honestly when questions feel approachable—nobody wants to decipher legalese or academic jargon while sharing personal struggles.
Here’s a quick guide to best practices:
Bad practices | Good practices |
|---|---|
Poorly worded, leading, or vague questions | Clear, unbiased, specific phrasing |
All yes/no or scale responses | Mix of open-ended, single-select, and rating questions |
Sterile/impersonal language | Conversational, relatable tone |
Remember, a good survey doesn’t just fill quotas. You want to unlock high response rates and robust, thoughtful answers that actually help you drive real change. If you’re not seeing both volume and substance in your results, it’s time to revisit your approach.
Question types and examples for a student survey about textbook costs
Effective surveys use a mix of question types to capture both breadth and depth. Here’s how I approach it, influenced by what works best for student audiences:
Open-ended questions invite students to express details in their own words, helping you explore unexpected issues. They’re great when you want nuanced experiences or “the story behind the data.”
Can you describe a time when textbook costs affected your course choices?
What resources would help you most in dealing with expensive textbooks?
Single-select multiple-choice questions make it easy to segment and categorize responses. Use them for straightforward quantitative data, like measuring prevalence of an issue.
How often have you not purchased a required textbook due to its price?
Never
Once
A few times
Often
NPS (Net Promoter Score) question is handy for benchmarking sentiment—ideal when you want to track shifts over time or spot underlying problems fast. You can generate an NPS survey for students on textbook costs for instant setup.
On a scale from 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend your college’s approach to textbook affordability to a friend?
Followup questions to uncover "the why" make the difference between shallow and actionable insights. Whenever you get a vague or partial answer (“sometimes textbooks are too expensive”), asking a tailored follow-up like “Which courses have given you the most trouble affording materials?” uncovers specifics that you can actually act on.
If a student replies, “I stopped buying books,” the AI might follow up with, “Which classes did you choose to go without textbooks for?”
If you want a more comprehensive list, explore best questions for student surveys on textbook costs—the right mix matters more than you think.
What is a conversational survey?
A conversational survey feels like a natural chat, not a dry web form. It asks the right questions, engages students as if you were speaking directly to them, and dynamically probes for more details when answers are vague. This approach blows traditional/manual survey creation out of the water—manual surveys are static, rigid, and exhausting to build and analyze.
Manual surveys | AI-generated surveys |
|---|---|
Labor-intensive to create and update | Survey built in seconds by chatting with AI |
Stilted, one-size-fits-all questions | Conversational, tailored questions |
No followups or context awareness | Automatic AI follow-up questions based on responses |
Manual analysis of responses | Instant AI-powered analysis and summaries |
Why use AI for student surveys? You get an “AI survey example” in seconds, with the survey evolving in real time based on how students actually respond. Not only is this efficient, it dramatically increases your chances of earning real, nuanced feedback. With Specific, the user experience is top-tier for both the person creating the survey and those taking it—a smooth, conversational, mobile-friendly environment that meets students where they are (literally and figuratively). If you want to go deeper on building surveys with AI, check out our guide on how to create effective student surveys in less time.
The power of follow-up questions
Follow-up questions transform surface answers into gold. Automated AI followups ensure you catch what traditional forms miss—and save endless back-and-forth emails. Specific’s AI asks intelligent follow-up questions instantly, in context, so a student’s initial reply leads naturally to deeper insights. This context-aware interviewing makes every survey conversational and maximizes the value of every single response.
Student: “I couldn’t buy all my books this semester.”
AI follow-up: “Which books did you skip, and how did it affect your classes?”
How many followups to ask? Two or three is usually the sweet spot—enough to clarify answers without being intrusive. There’s a setting to skip once you’ve got what you need, and Specific lets you control this flexibly for any survey.
This makes it a conversational survey—you’re not just collecting one-off data, you’re having a real conversation that earns real insights.
AI survey analysis, data insights, quick summaries: analyzing lots of open-ended and follow-up responses used to be a nightmare, but now you can let AI distill the big takeaways. See how easy it can be in this AI survey responses analysis guide.
Automated followup questions are seriously next-level—generate your survey and watch the difference yourself. It’s a richer, more effective way to get the answers you need, without the hassle.
See this textbook costs survey example now
Start learning exactly how textbook costs impact your students—get high-quality responses in minutes, gather richer stories with follow-ups, and unlock the kind of insights that are only possible with a truly conversational AI-powered survey experience. Create your own survey and discover every reason and barrier from your students—no guesswork, just actionable answers.