How to create a good school survey? Complete Guide for Schools.

Creating an effective school survey is essential for measuring student well-being, the learning environment, and the quality of education. Despite this, many schools struggle with low response rates or misleading results.

In this guide, we’ll walk you through how to create an effective school survey — from asking the right questions to increasing response rates.

Why are school surveys important?

School surveys are a key part of systematic quality work in schools. They help you to:

• Gain insights into student well-being and safety

• Identify areas for improvement

• Follow up on previous initiatives

• Make data-driven decisions

Today, many schools use digital survey tools, such as Skolado, to simplify the process and gain better insights from their results.

Step 1: Define the purpose of the survey

Before writing any questions, you need to be clear about the purpose.

Ask yourself:

• What do we want to find out?

• How will the results be used?

Examples of purposes:

• Measure student well-being

• Evaluate teaching quality

• Follow up on the work environment

A clear purpose makes it much easier to create relevant questions.

Step 2: Ask clear and simple questions

Good survey questions should be:

• Short and clear

• Easy to understand

❌ Poor example:“The school environment is good, right?”

(= ledande fråga som påverkar svaret)

✅ Better example:“How would you rate the school environment?”

✅ Better example:“I feel that the school environment is good.”

Step 3: Use the right answer options

The choice of response options directly affects the quality of your data.

Common options include:

• Always, often, rarely, never → good for measuring experiences

• Scale questions (1–5) → good for measuring perceptions

• Yes/No questions → good for clear answers

• Open-ended questions → good for feedback, but use sparingly

A good balance makes the survey both easy to answer and easy to analyze.

Step 4: Keep the survey short

One of the most common reasons for low response rates is that surveys are too long.

👉 Aim for:

• 5–10 minutes completion time

• Maximum 10–15 questions

Shorter surveys = more responses.

Step 5: Ensure anonymity

To get honest answers, participants need to feel safe.

• Clearly communicate that the survey is anonymous

• Avoid questions that could identify individuals

This increases both response rates and the quality of responses.

Step 6: Choose the right timing

Timing matters more than many people think.

Avoid:

• Exam periods

• Holidays

• Stressful times

You’ll often get the best results:

• Mid-term

• When students and staff have time to respond

It’s also beneficial to measure more frequently than once per term or school year — for example, twice per term — to get a more accurate and fair picture, where temporary factors have less impact.

Step 7: Make the survey engaging and child-friendly

To achieve high response rates — especially among younger students — clear questions are not enough.

The survey must also be engaging and adapted to the target group.

Children and young people often have shorter attention spans, which means traditional surveys can feel boring or difficult to complete.

👉 Therefore, it is important to:

• Use simple and clear language

• Use gamification in response methods

Skolado offers engaging formats such as emoji scales, archery-style responses, water level indicators, battery levels, and spaceship-themed interactions.

Gamification increases engagement

An effective way to increase engagement is through gamification — making the survey more interactive and motivating.

Students are also more likely to complete the survey when measurements are conducted more frequently.