Here are some of the best questions for an elementary school student survey about lunch experience, plus tips on how to create them. We make it easy to build a tailored survey for any school in seconds—just describe what you need and let AI handle the rest.
Best open-ended questions for students on lunch experience
Open-ended questions bring out real, honest feedback—students answer in their own words, sharing details we could easily miss with fixed choices. This is especially important for kids, since expressing themselves freely can surface surprising ideas, genuine preferences, and problems we never thought to ask about. These questions give us richer data and help avoid bias by not boxing kids into predefined responses. Plus, letting students write what they really think increases engagement and satisfaction with the process [1].
What do you like most about the school lunches?
If you could change one thing about lunch at school, what would it be?
Can you describe a lunch you really enjoyed this year?
Is there anything about lunchtime that makes you feel happy or excited?
What do you wish was different about the cafeteria or lunchroom?
Are there foods you wish were served more often? Why those foods?
Tell us about a time you didn’t enjoy your lunch—what happened?
How do you feel when the lunch period ends—full, hungry, or something else?
Is there something that would make lunchtime better for you or your friends?
What does your perfect school lunch look or taste like?
Kids tend to be authentic in open questions—and we almost always find new ideas or hidden issues, because they aren’t limited by our assumptions [1].
Best single-select multiple-choice questions for lunch surveys
Single-select multiple-choice questions are the go-to when we want quick responses or need to quantify opinions easily—like for reports, charts, or spotting trends. For children, these questions also lower the effort needed to answer, making it more likely they’ll finish the survey without getting stuck. Sometimes it’s just easier to tap a choice than type out a whole thought. And if we want, we can always dig deeper with a follow-up question or two.
Here are three examples:
Question: How do you usually feel about the food served at lunch?
I really like it
It’s okay
I don’t like it much
I don’t eat school lunch
Question: What is your favorite type of lunch food served at school?
Pizza or pasta
Sandwiches
Chicken nuggets or similar
Fruit and veggies
Other
Question: How often do you finish your lunch?
Always
Most days
Sometimes
Rarely
When to followup with "why?" We always add a quick “why?” or “can you tell me more?” when a student picks an answer we want to understand further. For example, if a student selects “I don’t like it much,” a great follow-up would be, “What about the food makes you feel this way?”—this opens up the conversation, letting us learn specifics we can actually use to improve lunches.
When and why to add the "Other" choice? Whenever we’re not 100% certain about our list, or when food choices are diverse, “Other” is essential. Follow up by asking, “If you picked Other, what lunch food did you have in mind?” That’s where some of the best insights come from, as students raise ideas that no adult menu planner thought of initially.
NPS-style survey question for kids’ lunch experience
The Net Promoter Score (NPS) question works surprisingly well for gathering a fast, overall sense of how students experience school lunch. In this context, it helps us know how enthusiastic or unenthusiastic kids are, and what drives those feelings. The classic NPS question, “How likely are you to recommend our school lunches to a friend?” on a 0–10 scale, gives us clean numbers to compare and track over time—and it kicks off deeper probing if someone scores low. This approach works even for young students with a bit of phrasing adjustment, and it's proven valuable for capturing satisfaction trends in schools and other youth programs [2]. If you want to see how to create an NPS survey for school lunch, check out our pre-built generator for this precise use case.
The power of follow-up questions
What really sets a great lunch survey apart are smart, dynamic follow-ups. Instead of letting vague answers slip by, automated AI-powered follow-up questions prompt kids—gently and at just the right moment—for more details or clarification. This turns the typical one-way form into a conversation that feels like having a chat with a caring lunchroom supervisor, and the resulting data is far richer and clearer.
With Specific, the survey’s AI will ask tailored follow-ups right after each student replies—always considering the words, tone, and context of their first answer. This is a game-changer for busy staff and teachers; automated follow-ups save hours we’d otherwise spend emailing or calling for clarification. Here’s what that looks like in practice:
Student: "I don’t like the food."
AI follow-up: "Can you tell me what foods you don’t like, or what would make lunch better for you?"
Student: "Sometimes there’s not enough time to eat."
AI follow-up: "How much more time do you think you need for lunch?"
How many followups to ask? Two or three well-placed follow-up questions are usually enough to get a well-rounded answer. But it’s key to give students a way to move on if they’ve said all they want—this helps keep them comfortable and prevents survey fatigue. We built a toggle into our settings for exactly this reason.
This makes it a conversational survey—that’s the difference: It’s no longer a static form, but a friendly, interactive chat. Respondents feel seen and heard, and they’re more likely to stick with it to the end.
AI survey analysis, AI-driven response summary, and AI analysis tools make it easier than ever to process and understand open-ended, text-heavy results—no matter how many responses come in. Even long and messy responses are distilled into clear, actionable insights via chat (and you can explore by asking follow-up questions directly to the AI).
These follow-up questions are a new concept for many schools—and they make surveys much more conversational. If you haven’t tried it yourself, I’d encourage you to generate a sample survey and see how this works in action.
Prompt ideas: How to get great student lunch survey questions from ChatGPT
If you’re experimenting with ChatGPT or any GPT-based tool to brainstorm survey questions, start by keeping the prompt short and descriptive. Here’s a quick base prompt you can try:
Suggest 10 open-ended questions for elementary school student survey about lunch experience.
Want even better output? Always add more context about your school, your goal, and anything important about your students or menu. For example:
I need 10 open-ended questions for a lunch survey targeting students ages 8–11 at our medium-sized public elementary school. We serve a mix of hot entrees and veggie sides. I want to find out which foods students like best, what problems they notice, and ideas for making lunch better. Please ask questions that are easy for younger kids to understand.
Once you have a list, refine it further. Try:
Look at the questions and categorize them. Output categories with the questions under them.
Then, pick the most important categories or ones you want to explore deeper, and ask:
Generate 10 questions for categories “Favorite Lunch Foods” and “Suggestions for Improvement”.
This process makes AI outputs more specific to your needs, and saves you tons of time writing and revising survey items.
What makes a survey conversational (and why AI wins)
Traditional surveys often flop with students—forms can feel cold or confusing, especially for younger kids. In contrast, a conversational survey, especially one built with AI, feels like a friendly chat, offering students (or other audiences) a chance to explain, elaborate, and feel heard. AI surveys react to answers in real time, probing for more details or clarification naturally, and making the whole process much more engaging and productive. With features like the AI survey editor, it’s even easier to experiment and tweak questions as you go.
Manual Survey Creation | AI-Generated Survey |
|---|---|
Spend hours writing, editing, and formatting questions | Describe your goal and the AI generates tailored questions within seconds |
Harder to add smart follow-ups—needs scripting and planning | AI asks adaptive questions based on each answer, adding depth on the fly |
Static forms, less engaging for kids | Feels like a chat, increasing engagement and completion rates |
Open responses are harder to analyze | AI summarizes and analyzes responses instantly, surfacing key themes |
Why use AI for elementary school student surveys? Because kids, like adults, respond better to conversations. With AI, you get higher-quality, more thoughtful responses, especially when the survey can ask “why?” or “can you tell me more?” on the fly. See this guide to creating an AI survey for a full walkthrough.
Ultimately, an AI survey example is as simple as describing what you want to learn, letting the system handle the survey creation, and watching richer, more actionable feedback roll in. That’s what sets Specific apart: best-in-class, fully conversational surveys—making the feedback process smooth and engaging for both creators and students.
See this lunch experience survey example now
See how a conversational lunch experience survey feels in practice—discover insights you’d never get from a form, spark better conversations with students, and transform how your school collects feedback.