Here are some of the best questions for a high school senior student survey about mental health and stress, plus tips for crafting them. You can quickly generate a fully-structured survey using Specific’s AI survey generator—we make it simple to build tailored, conversational surveys that capture real student voices.
Best open-ended questions for high school seniors: mental health and stress
Open-ended questions are perfect for exploring the nuanced, personal experiences of high school seniors. These questions encourage honest, thoughtful replies—especially on sensitive topics like mental health and stress—digging into how students feel in their own words. Use them when you want stories, context, or to discover issues you didn’t know existed.
In your own words, how would you describe your current stress levels at school?
What are the main sources of stress you face as a high school senior?
Can you share a recent experience when school stress affected your daily life?
How do you usually cope when you feel overwhelmed by schoolwork or expectations?
What support systems (friends, family, teachers) help you manage your mental health?
Are there any specific school policies or practices that impact your stress levels?
What types of mental health resources would you find most helpful at your school?
How comfortable do you feel talking to adults at school about your mental health?
If you could change one thing at school to reduce stress, what would it be?
What advice would you give to incoming seniors about maintaining mental health?
With open-ended questions, you’ll get real insight and unexpected perspectives. This is vital when, according to Statista, nearly 29.3% of U.S. high school students reported poor mental health—including stress, anxiety, and depression—in 2021, and that number is even higher among female students at 40.8% [1]. When students feel heard, their responses become a compass for real change.
Best single-select multiple-choice questions for high school senior students
Single-select multiple-choice questions are straightforward and quick—use them to quantify how many students feel a certain way or experience a particular challenge. They work well when you need fast data for reporting, or when you want to lower barriers to engagement (it’s easier to pick an answer than write a paragraph). They can also spark a conversation, setting up perfect opportunities for targeted follow up questions.
Question: How often do you feel overwhelmed by school-related stress?
Never
Rarely
Sometimes
Often
Almost always
Question: Which of the following is your biggest source of stress as a senior?
Homework load
College applications
Exams and grades
Family expectations
Other
Question: Do you feel you have enough time to complete your assignments and personal activities?
Yes, always
Most of the time
Sometimes
Rarely
No, never
When to followup with "why?" If a student selects "Often" or "Almost always" for feeling stressed, jump in with a targeted "Why is that?" or "Can you tell me more about what makes you feel this way?" These follow-ups dig beneath the surface, transforming simple answers into actionable improvement opportunities.
When and why to add the "Other" choice? Sometimes students’ stress stems from factors you haven’t listed—like social challenges or extracurricular overload. Including "Other" lets them speak up, and a follow-up intro ("Can you elaborate on your answer?") can uncover vital, overlooked issues.
NPS-type questions for mental health and stress surveys
Net Promoter Score (NPS) questions aren’t just for businesses—they’re incredibly useful for gauging overall student wellbeing and referral likelihood. When you ask seniors, "On a scale of 0–10, how likely are you to recommend your school’s mental health support to a friend?" you get a measurable benchmark for support quality, plus an easy way to track trends. It’s direct, quick, and highly comparable. You can generate an NPS survey for high school students in seconds and use smart follow-ups for promoters (what did you find helpful?) and detractors (what needs to change?).
The power of follow-up questions
Automatic, targeted follow-up questions turn one-line answers into rich feedback. With AI follow-ups, every response gets the context and depth a skilled interviewer would bring—right inside your student survey. That’s why we built Specific: our platform uses AI to respond in real time, clarifying vague replies and asking smart, relevant questions so you grasp the full story.
Student: "The homework is too much."
AI follow-up: "Can you share an example of a time when your homework load felt unmanageable?"
Student: "I feel burned out."
AI follow-up: "What are the main things contributing to your burnout this year?"
If you skip follow-ups, you might be left with responses you can’t act on or fully understand.
How many followups to ask? Usually, two or three is enough to get full context—after that, let students move on. In Specific, you can set this up automatically, or collect just the insights you want before ending the conversation.
This makes it a conversational survey: Each question is a dialogue, not a dead end. Students stay engaged, and you surface insights you would’ve missed in a traditional static form.
AI survey response analysis is a breeze—even with pages of unstructured text, AI sorts, summarizes, and surfaces themes in seconds (see our AI-powered response analysis guide).
Give Specific a try: even if you’ve never used conversational surveys or follow-up questions, it changes the game. Quick to start, and richer results, every time.
How to prompt AI for great mental health and stress survey questions
Composing the right prompt for ChatGPT (or any similar AI) unlocks creative, focused questions. Start simple, and add details about your specific context for more tailored ideas.
Start with:
Suggest 10 open-ended questions for High School Senior Student survey about Mental Health And Stress.
You’ll get even better results if you tell the AI about your exact needs—your role, what you want to learn, school context, etc. For example:
I’m a school counselor at a large urban high school. We want to help students manage stress and avoid burnout before graduation. Suggest 10 open-ended questions that reveal the main causes of stress, coping strategies, and gaps in school support, using language that resonates with teenagers.
Once you have a list, organize them for clarity:
Look at the questions and categorize them. Output categories with the questions under them.
Then pick the categories you care most about (e.g., “Coping Strategies” or “Support Systems”) and drill deeper:
Generate 10 questions for categories Coping Strategies and Support Systems.
Try iterating; the more context you give, the smarter your AI-generated survey will be (see also our AI survey generator for the fastest approach).
What is a conversational survey and why use AI to build it?
Conversational surveys aren’t just chatbots—they’re a seismic shift in how we gather feedback. Instead of a one-way, static form that collects fragments, a conversational AI survey adapts to answers, probes in context, and keeps students engaged start to finish. It feels like texting with a thoughtful counselor, not filling out a bureaucratic form.
Manual Survey Creation | AI-Generated (Conversational) Surveys |
|---|---|
Time-consuming to write and organize each question | AI drafts surveys instantly from your goals |
No built-in follow-ups—risks getting shallow, vague answers | Dynamic follow-up questions reveal deeper stories |
Difficult to analyze open responses at scale | AI summarizes and highlights themes from all answers |
Feels robotic, hard to personalize | Feels like a human-to-human chat, boosting response rates |
Why use AI for high school senior surveys? Student mental health and stress are complex, evolving topics. AI-powered conversational surveys let you adapt instantly—probing for details, clarifying answers, personalizing follow-ups, and making analysis effortless. This makes it possible to surface trends (for example, the fact that in 2024, 75% of high schoolers report high stress, and 64% report burnout [3]), take rapid action, and support students effectively.
AI survey examples and tools—like Specific’s AI survey builder—offer a best-in-class platform for creating, sharing, and analyzing conversational student surveys. You get the power of a live interviewer, but at scale, on your own terms. If you’re curious how to create a survey about mental health and stress, we’ve got you covered with step-by-step guides and instant templates.
See this mental health and stress survey example now
Discover the difference a truly conversational, AI-powered survey makes—uncover insights on high school mental health and stress that static forms miss. Generate your own survey and start collecting richer feedback from real students in seconds.