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Best questions for elementary school student survey about playground safety

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Adam Sabla

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Aug 19, 2025

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Here are some of the best questions for an elementary school student survey about playground safety, along with tips on how to create them. We use Specific’s AI to help you build surveys like this in seconds—making feedback collection effortless and insightful.

Best open-ended questions for playground safety surveys

Open-ended questions let students explain their thoughts in their own words. They’re perfect for digging deeper into how kids really feel or what they’ve actually experienced on the playground. While these questions can lead to higher nonresponse rates (up to 18%, compared to 1-2% for closed-ended questions) [1], they often reveal issues you never even thought to ask about [2]. If you want fresh, unexpected feedback, lean on these!

  1. What makes you feel safe or unsafe when you play outside during recess?

  2. Can you tell me about a time when you saw someone get hurt on the playground?

  3. If you could change anything about the playground to make it safer, what would it be?

  4. Are there any playground areas that you avoid? Why?

  5. Have you seen any broken equipment or things that didn’t look safe? What were they?

  6. Who do you talk to if you feel worried about safety on the playground?

  7. What rules do you think help keep everyone safe on the playground?

  8. Is there anything you wish teachers or adults understood better about playground safety?

  9. How do you and your friends handle conflicts or disagreements on the playground?

  10. What else should we know to help make your playground experience safer and more fun?

Best multiple-choice questions for playground safety surveys

Single-select multiple-choice questions are super useful if you need to quantify responses, spot clear trends, or keep things simple for young students. Sometimes it’s just easier for kids to pick from a few choices than to come up with a long answer. These questions can also help get a conversation going—then you can dig deeper with follow-ups if you want extra insights.

Question: Which area of the playground do you spend the most time in?

  • Swings

  • Slides

  • Climbing structures

  • Open field

  • Other

Question: How safe do you feel when playing on the playground?

  • Very safe

  • Somewhat safe

  • Not very safe

  • Not safe at all

Question: Who do you go to if there is a safety problem?

  • Teacher

  • Friend

  • Principal

  • Other

When to followup with "why?" A “why?” follow-up is perfect after a student picks a choice—especially if their answer hints at a problem or something unexpected (“Not very safe,” for example). For example: “Why don’t you feel very safe on the playground?” You can also use follow-ups if you want stories, context, or suggestions for improvement.

When and why to add the "Other" choice? Always offer “Other” for questions where students might have a unique answer not listed. This way, kids can share different experiences you hadn’t thought of, and follow-up questions (“What is the other area you use?”) can bring in valuable insights you’d otherwise miss.

NPS-style question: Does it make sense for playground safety?

The Net Promoter Score (NPS) isn’t just for businesses—you can use it with students to measure how likely they are to recommend their playground to friends at other schools. This gives you a clear, easy-to-track number that reflects overall safety satisfaction. You might ask: “On a scale of 0–10, how likely are you to tell a friend at another school that your playground is a safe and fun place to play?” Tracking these scores over time helps you spot trends and areas to improve. See how to create an NPS question in seconds.

The power of follow-up questions

Follow-up questions are a secret weapon in any good survey. Instead of accepting incomplete or vague answers, you can keep the conversation going—right inside the survey, in real time. For a deep dive into this, check out our feature on how automated follow-up questions work.

We’ve found that AI-powered follow-ups not only save massive amounts of time (no more chasing respondents via email!), but they also create a much more natural, engaging experience—just like a real conversation. The result? Longer, richer feedback. One study found that 53% of conversational survey responses contained more than 100 words, compared to just 5% in ordinary open-ended surveys [3].

  • Elementary school student: Sometimes I don’t like the monkey bars.

  • AI follow-up: Can you tell me what makes the monkey bars uncomfortable or unsafe for you?

How many followups to ask? For most playground safety surveys, 2–3 follow-up questions are enough to get the detail you need. Specific lets you customize this—plus, you can give students the option to skip ahead once they’ve shared enough.

This makes it a conversational survey: The chat-like approach—driven by smart follow-ups—transforms the static survey into a real back-and-forth dialogue (conversational survey).

AI response analysis, open-ended answers, qualitative feedback: Don’t worry if you collect tons of text—Specific’s AI tools make it easy to analyze all these responses. See how to quickly make sense of open-ended replies in our AI analysis guide.

Automated, intelligent follow-ups are a game changer—try generating a survey in Specific to see just how conversational and meaningful your results can be.

Prompting ChatGPT to generate better survey questions

If you want to brainstorm with AI tools like ChatGPT (or with Specific’s survey editor), be specific and add context. For starters, try this prompt:

Suggest 10 open-ended questions for elementary school student survey about playground safety.

But giving more context always helps the AI give you better questions. For example, specify who you are, your goal, or what type of safety issues you care most about:

I’m a school principal interested in understanding how safe elementary students feel on the playground, including which equipment feels most or least safe and ideas for improvement. Suggest 10 open-ended questions for my survey.

Once you have your draft questions, ask the AI to structure them further:

Look at the questions and categorize them. Output categories with the questions under them.

Finally, pick the categories most relevant to your concerns and dive deeper:

Generate 10 questions for categories “equipment safety” and “conflict resolution.”

What is a conversational survey? Why go AI-powered?

Conversational surveys feel more like a chat with a friendly adult than a test or boring form. They adapt in real time, probe for details, and let students express themselves naturally. By contrast, traditional surveys are rigid, miss context, and often leave you with half-finished answers.

Manual survey

AI-generated, conversational survey

Static questions
Feels formal or test-like
Analysis is manual

Dynamic follow-ups
Feels like a friendly conversation
AI instantly summarizes full context

Why use AI for elementary school student surveys? Kids respond best to surveys that are simple, interactive, and adjust to their understanding. An AI-powered survey builder—like Specific—automates the creation, follow-up, and analysis. It delivers a playful, chat-like experience that’s easy for kids, fast for teachers, and rich in actionable insights. For expert guidance on setup, check our advice on how to create student playground safety surveys.

We designed Specific for smooth, engaging, best-in-class conversational surveys. Both teachers and students appreciate how easy it is: fewer cognitive hurdles, more accurate information, and an experience that’s both fun and effective.

See this playground safety survey example now

Start collecting meaningful playground safety feedback from elementary students with a conversational survey—get deeper insights, enjoy instant AI analysis, and make your school’s playground safer and more welcoming for every child.

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Sources

  1. Pew Research Center. Why do some open-ended survey questions result in higher item nonresponse rates than others?

  2. Thematic. Why use open-enders in surveys?

  3. Conjointly. Conversational Surveys vs. Open-ended Surveys: Response Length and Richness

Adam Sabla - Image Avatar

Adam Sabla

Adam Sabla is an entrepreneur with experience building startups that serve over 1M customers, including Disney, Netflix, and BBC, with a strong passion for automation.

Adam Sabla

Adam Sabla is an entrepreneur with experience building startups that serve over 1M customers, including Disney, Netflix, and BBC, with a strong passion for automation.

Adam Sabla

Adam Sabla is an entrepreneur with experience building startups that serve over 1M customers, including Disney, Netflix, and BBC, with a strong passion for automation.