10 student survey templates for reliable feedback
What are good survey questions to ask students? Discover how a well-crafted student survey can boost participation and yield valuable insights.
Summary:
- Templates are designed to include a range of stakeholders, such as students, parents, teachers and administrators, to gather comprehensive feedback.
- Standardised questions enable schools to evaluate school climate, course effectiveness and student engagement consistently over time.
- Using pre-built templates speeds up the feedback process and ensures that questions are methodologically sound and unbiased.
Your students make the biggest impact on your school environment and ultimate success. And that’s why it’s important to regularly collect their feedback to see where you can improve.
Institutions like the US Department of Education and Harvard Graduate School of Education recognise the importance of robust education surveys. That’s why we collaborated with their experts to develop these student survey templates.
These targeted student surveys are designed to minimise bias and encourage participation. They also cover key topics, from parent engagement to student satisfaction.
Read this article for our top sample student survey questions and full surveys you can use immediately. You’ll also learn education survey design best practices and get tips for increasing student participation.
What are student survey templates?
Student survey templates gather student feedback on any aspect of the learning process. Student surveys may include questions on teaching quality, course evaluations, facilities, satisfaction and much more. Administrators and educators can use this feedback to identify and address student experience issues.
Why are student surveys important?
Student survey templates are excellent tools for gathering valuable insights to help drive change within a school or university setting. The data collected from student questionnaires enables administrators and education leaders to make informed decisions.
Teacher evaluation
Use surveys as an effective teacher evaluation tool. Ask students questions to gather feedback on teacher effectiveness, including lessons and teaching style. These surveys also provide insight into students' perceptions of faculty members and help address any concerns. Teachers themselves can use these evaluation and feedback forms to support their professional development.
Improve learning outcomes
Regularly sending student surveys produces insights that enhance learning experiences. This has widespread benefits, such as lowering course dropout rates, increasing graduation rates and improving overall student success. By asking questions about a particular course’s structure or educational content, educators can discover what students liked and disliked.
Data-driven decisions
Survey insights help improve the learning environment for both students and teachers. When you collect feedback, you make staff members and students feel supported and valued. Of course, following up on student feedback is important, too. Use the data to make decisions about the curriculum, course format and more.
Examples of student survey questionnaires by use case
Satisfaction with faculty
Assess students’ views of professors and instructors with a university faculty satisfaction survey. Ask students about the faculty member’s teaching style, communication skills, availability of additional support and whether they would choose to take other courses with the same instructor.
Internet and social media safety
Are students safely and appropriately using their university email, Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter) and the internet in general? SurveyMonkey has created questionnaires for students to find out how, where and when they use social media.
With these surveys, you can ask questions such as, “When you’re on social networking sites (like Facebook), how much time do you spend posting about other people?” For the best results, make sure students know these surveys are anonymous and secure.
Parental involvement
If you want to know what parents think about your educational institution and their child’s progress, sending a survey is an excellent way to gather honest feedback. Do parents feel they have enough time to engage actively in their children’s education? Send a parent survey with questions such as, “How confident are you in your ability to support your child’s learning at home?”
Overall climate and mood
Give students the chance to share their thoughts and feelings about their school community or campus. Do they feel genuinely supported by teachers and staff? Are there concerns about bullying or mistreatment among students? A student survey can highlight areas the administration needs to address.
How do students feel about distance learning, campus safety and post-pandemic education? We’ve researched this and can share what students think.
How to create a student survey
1. Set a goal
To start, set a clear goal for your student survey. This will help direct your focus and shape the questions you include. Having a defined goal also makes it easier to keep your survey concise, which is better for you (and your students). Respondents are more likely to abandon surveys that are too long or cover too many topics if they become bored or fatigued.
2. Understand your audience
Understanding your audience is extremely important when creating a survey. In this case, your target audience is students of your educational institution. However, you must be intentional and develop questions carefully, using clear and direct language.
Design respectful and inclusive questions, and avoid bias or assumptions about gender identity. Additionally, when asking questions about topics that may be sensitive to some students, give respondents the option to decline to answer.
3. Choose your questions
Next, select what questions to include in your student survey. Your questions should be clear and simple for respondents. Try using both open- and closed-ended questions to introduce variety and gain deeper insights. This approach will help you encourage students to respond to your survey.
4. Format the survey
Arrange your student survey so it flows logically from one question to the next. This approach encourages honest student feedback and boosts completion rates. Mix up your question types and add your school colours and logo to help reinforce your brand.
5. Test and measure
It’s wise to test your survey with a small group before launching it widely. Ask your testers if anything was unclear or didn’t work as expected. You should also review the results and analyse the data to ensure the survey gathered the information you needed and aligns with your original goal.
6. Distribute the survey
Once you’ve refined your student survey and tested it with a small group, you’re ready to distribute it. We suggest sending it via school email or SMS. To boost participation, consider offering an incentive such as a raffle entry or a small reward.
Student survey templates
Ready to create a student survey? Explore our expert-written, customisable education survey templates to minimise bias and achieve reliable results. Adapt them as you like and send your survey in minutes. Or keep reading for an overview of our most popular student survey templates.
General education surveys
Education demographics template
Discover the makeup of your academic community with 16 basic demographic questions about gender, income, race, relationship to the student and more.
Learning support template
Ask parents five brief questions about how they support their children’s educational environment at home.
K-12 teacher surveys
K-12 teachers respond to 10 questions in this teacher satisfaction questionnaire. This template covers topics such as school safety, resources, administrative support, standardised tests and student achievement.
Surveys for parents
Parent surveys
Find out how parents interact with teachers and each other. Learn about their involvement in school, fundraising activities, social connections and volunteering with this 10-question template.
Parent self-efficacy template
How empowered do parents feel to support their child’s learning at home? Gauge their confidence level and find ways to help with this seven-question survey.
Surveys for universities
University faculty satisfaction survey template
Use this faculty satisfaction survey template to ask university staff about leadership, working relationships, administration and general job satisfaction at their university. It’s a quick, 10-question survey.
University instructor evaluation template
The students have the opportunity to grade the university professors and instructors with this 28-question student survey about teachers. Questions centre on course materials, teaching methods, instructor availability, assignment usefulness and overall satisfaction.
University student graduation template
Get feedback from students about their university experience with this 10-question graduation template. This survey offers insight into expected graduation dates, overall impressions of teaching quality, facilities and future aspirations.
University student satisfaction template
This 10-question general feedback survey allows university students to express their satisfaction with teaching effectiveness, facilities, registration process, campus safety and more.
University teaching assistant evaluation template
Explore this 15-question teaching assistant (TA) evaluation survey. Students rate TAs on subject knowledge, delivery of material, teaching ability, availability and overall effectiveness.
The 30 best student survey questions
Below you’ll find sample questions for student surveys in higher education as well as for primary and secondary schools. This is not an exhaustive list, but it offers guidance for a range of audiences.
We suggest using a blend of open- and closed-ended questions when designing student surveys. These can include Likert-scale multiple-choice questions as well as open-text-box questions.
Questions for students
Secondary school student survey questions cover topics such as bullying, sports and academic experiences.
- In the past week, how many times, if any, has someone spread rumours about you?
- In the past week, how many times, if any, has someone excluded you from joining in activities?
- How difficult is it to balance your sporting and academic responsibilities?
- How understanding are your teachers about your sporting commitments?
- How understanding are your coaches about your academic responsibilities?
- Overall, how satisfied are you with your academic experience at this school?
- How much do you think this teacher knows about the class they teach?
- How well do you understand the material this teacher covers?
- How enthusiastic do you think this teacher is about teaching?
- How confident are you that this school is providing a solid academic education?
- How satisfied are you with the school-sponsored extracurricular activities available to you?
- Do you agree that students at this school generally respect the teachers?
- Do you agree that teachers at this school generally respect the students?
- Do you feel physically safe on this school campus?
University student surveys often explore the academic experience, administrative services and physical facilities.
- How well do the professors teach at this university?
- How effective is the teaching outside your main subject at this university?
- How easy is it to register for classes at this university?
- How helpful is your academic adviser?
- How easy is it to obtain the resources you need from the university library system?
- How safe do you feel on campus?
Questions for parents
Surveying parents can help measure their engagement while also encouraging greater involvement. It’s a valuable way to understand parents’ experiences and perceptions of their children’s education, too.
- How often do you meet in person with teachers at your child’s school?
- In the past year, how often have you discussed your child’s school with other parents from the school?
- In the past year, how often have you helped out at your child’s school?
- How often do you have conversations with your child about what their class is learning at school?
- How often do you help your child understand the content they are learning in school?
- How often do you help your child take part in educational activities outside the home?
Questions for faculty
Like employees in any other type of organisation, faculty members want to be heard. Their perspectives provide valuable insights into employee satisfaction and retention.
- How satisfied are you with the compensation package at this university?
- How satisfied are you with the teaching requirements at this university?
- How well does this university recognise faculty for their achievements?
- How satisfied are you with your department’s leadership?
- How satisfied are you with the opportunities for professional development at this university?
Best practices for student surveys
Make sure your surveys are clear and unbiased to gather actionable feedback. Here are some best practices for designing student surveys:
- Keep it brief. Today’s students have shorter attention spans than those from 20 years ago. Make your survey concise and the questions clear to prevent students from dropping out before finishing.
- Give the option to not answer. School surveys may touch on sensitive topics, so always let students choose not to respond. This enables them to decide what information they share, helping to ensure more accurate results.
- Keep it relevant. Your survey should be focused and stick to one topic. Ensure the questions apply to your students and don’t stray too far from your survey goal. You can even add different types of logic to your survey, so students only see the questions that are relevant to them.
Send a student survey in minutes
Want to know what your students really think? SurveyMonkey makes it easy to create and send student surveys by email, social media and more. Choose from hundreds of customisable survey templates. Our surveys are written by experts to help you boost participation and get actionable data.
Discover how SurveyMonkey can help your school gain insights with surveys. Or sign up for free to get started.