Here are some of the best questions for a high school sophomore student survey about classroom engagement, plus insider tips on how to create them. If you’re ready to build your own survey, Specific can help you generate one in seconds, tailored to classroom engagement insights.
The best open-ended questions for engagement surveys
Open-ended questions are key when you want honest, unfiltered feedback from students. They’re perfect for capturing nuance and surfacing concerns you might’ve never anticipated. Plus, they help students feel heard—which is half the battle in boosting engagement. Given that only 10% of students strongly agree that they enjoy their classes, these open, conversational questions are more important than ever. [1]
What parts of class make you feel most engaged or interested?
Tell us about a recent lesson that really captured your attention. What made it memorable?
Which classroom activities help you learn best, and why?
Describe a time you felt bored or disconnected in class. What do you think caused that?
What could teachers do differently to make classes more interesting for you?
Are there any topics or subjects you wish were taught differently? Which ones and why?
What distracts you most during lessons, and how could this be improved?
If you could change one thing about your classes, what would it be and why?
How do you prefer to show what you’ve learned (tests, projects, discussions, etc.)?
Share any ideas you have for making classes more engaging or relevant to your everyday life.
The best single-select multiple-choice questions
Single-select multiple-choice questions are great when you need fast, quantifiable data—or when you want to nudge students into a conversation. Let’s be real: sometimes it’s just easier for students to quickly pick from a few options than to compose a complicated answer from scratch. You get baseline insights, and then you can unlock even deeper responses with follow-ups.
Question: During most classes, how engaged do you feel?
Very engaged
Somewhat engaged
Neutral
Rarely engaged
Not at all engaged
Question: Which activity helps you remember class material best?
Class discussions
Group projects
Hands-on activities
Taking notes
Other
Question: What do you find most distracting during class?
Other students
Phone or devices
Noise
Personal worries
Nothing distracts me
When to followup with "why?" Whenever a student selects an option like “Not at all engaged” or “Other,” asking “Why?” as a follow-up invites the student to explain their reasoning. This helps move beyond surface-level answers—which matters, since approximately 34% of middle and high school students report boredom in class, a major engagement challenge. [1] For example, if a student selects “Group projects” as most helpful, you can ask, “Why do group projects work best for you?”
When and why to add the "Other" choice? “Other” opens the door for answers you might not anticipate. When a student picks “Other,” following up gives space for unexpected insights. This can reveal overlooked distractors or preferences—valuable for improving classroom engagement down the road.
NPS question: measuring classroom engagement loyalty
Net Promoter Score (NPS) isn’t just for business. It’s a simple question—“On a scale of 0-10, how likely are you to recommend your class experience to a peer?”—and it can measure overall classroom engagement from a student perspective. This helps you track engagement trends year over year, zoom in on changes among sophomores, and compare how your school stacks up to others. Considering that engaged students are 3.5 times more likely to attain higher grades, using NPS in student surveys can spotlight areas needing attention. [4] Try the NPS survey type for high school sophomores about classroom engagement here.
The power of follow-up questions
If you want rich, actionable feedback (not just random one-liners), follow-up questions are non-negotiable. They unlock layers of student thinking, clarify confusion, and gather details that would be missed with one-and-done forms. Specific’s automated AI follow-up questions feature lets the survey dynamically dig deeper, just like an expert interviewer—no extra work for you. The platform asks smart, tailored follow-ups in real time, based on what each student just said. This results in richer, more contextual insights that are a breeze to analyze.
High school sophomore: “Sometimes class discussions are hard to follow.”
AI follow-up: “Can you share what makes class discussions difficult for you?”
Without a follow-up, you might never discover whether the issue is with the speed of discussion, group size, or something else entirely.
How many followups to ask? Two to three follow-ups are usually enough to capture what you need. You can always set a cap, or let respondents skip if they’ve already provided everything you wanted. Specific gives you granular control over this, so the survey digs deep without turning into an interrogation.
This makes it a conversational survey—students engage in a back-and-forth, which feels more natural and less like an exam.
Qualitative data is easy to analyze—thanks to AI-powered analysis available in Specific. Even with dozens or hundreds of open-ended and follow-up answers, you can analyze all responses easily, extracting common themes and actionable takeaways.
Automated follow-up questions are a fairly new concept in survey design. Try generating a survey with follow-ups and see how different—and more insightful—the experience can be.
How to compose an AI prompt for survey questions
Let’s say you want an AI (like ChatGPT) to help you design a classroom engagement survey for sophomores. Start with this simple prompt:
Suggest 10 open-ended questions for High School Sophomore Student survey about Classroom Engagement.
The AI will almost always perform better when you give it more details. Try expanding your prompt to include your goals, student context, or survey objectives:
I am a teacher at a suburban high school looking to understand what helps or hinders classroom engagement for sophomores. Please suggest 10 open-ended questions that encourage honest, detailed student feedback.
Once you have a draft, categorize your questions for clarity:
Look at the questions and categorize them. Output categories with the questions under them.
Want to explore certain aspects deeper? Pick your categories (like “distractions” or “preferred learning methods”) and ask:
Generate 10 questions for categories distractions, preferred learning methods.
This guided, context-rich approach makes your prompts—and your resulting survey—much stronger.
What is a conversational survey?
A conversational survey feels like a chat—not like a traditional form—because each answer shapes what comes next. With real-time, AI-powered follow-ups, it’s interactive and personal, boosting honesty and detail in responses. Why does this matter? Research shows engaged students are far more likely to succeed, but old-school checkboxes rarely get to the “why.” [4] Learn more about creating an engaging student survey.
Manual Surveys | AI-generated Surveys (Conversational) |
|---|---|
Static, one-size-fits-all | Dynamic, adapts to each student’s reply |
Time-consuming to build and edit | Instantly generated, easy to edit with AI |
Hard to get deep insights | Uncovers context with smart follow-ups |
Tricky to analyze lots of open-ended answers | AI summarizes and distills answers, chat-style |
Why use AI for high school sophomore student surveys? Using an AI survey generator means you capture context, adapt each question in real time, and deliver an experience students actually want to complete. You can try the AI survey generator or edit any template conversationally with AI survey editor. This method is built for real engagement, not just compliance.
We see again and again that conversational surveys—especially those designed and analyzed with AI—offer a best-in-class user experience for both teachers and students. The feedback process is genuinely smooth, conversational, and much more revealing than static approaches.
See this classroom engagement survey example now
Ready to level up classroom engagement insights with questions that spark real conversation? Discover how a conversational, AI-powered survey can transform your feedback—get started and see the difference with an expertly crafted classroom engagement survey for sophomore students.