Here are some of the best questions for a student survey about campus safety, along with tips for crafting insightful questions. You can build a fully conversational survey in seconds using Specific, designed for richer, more actionable feedback.
Best open-ended questions for student survey about campus safety
Open-ended questions let students express themselves in their own words, surfacing details and perspectives you can’t predict in advance. This style is especially valuable for uncovering nuanced insights and motivations—crucial for a complex topic like campus safety. While open-ended items can result in higher nonresponse rates (averaging around 18% compared to just 1–2% for closed-ended questions [2]), the quality of the insights often outweighs this downside. It’s how we get to the real stories and context behind student concerns.
Here are 10 open-ended questions we find most effective:
How safe do you feel on campus during the day? Can you share any specific experiences?
What areas of campus do you feel are less safe, and why?
Can you describe any personal experiences related to campus safety?
What do you think the university could do to improve safety on campus?
What factors most influence your sense of safety here?
Have you ever witnessed or been involved in a campus safety incident? Please describe what happened and how it was handled.
How do you stay informed about safety issues or emergencies on campus?
What changes would most significantly improve your day-to-day sense of security?
Can you suggest any new resources or services that would make you feel safer?
Is there anything else you wish the administration knew about your campus safety concerns?
Open-ended questions open the door to in-depth feedback about feelings, barriers, and ideas for change—which is exactly what you need to take meaningful action. Experts stress that these questions let you uncover motivations and beliefs that closed-ended questions often miss [3]. For more on structuring questions, see our guide.
Best single-select multiple-choice questions for student survey about campus safety
Single-select multiple-choice questions are perfect when you need to quantify responses or create a gentle opening for a more detailed conversation. It’s sometimes easier for students to engage this way—offering a quick choice, then inviting them to share more via automated follow-ups. This approach boosts participation and gives you clear data points to track trends over time, which is helpful for reporting or comparing across semesters.
Here are three multiple-choice questions worth including:
Question: How safe do you currently feel on campus overall?
Very safe
Somewhat safe
Neutral
Somewhat unsafe
Very unsafe
Question: Which factor most affects your sense of safety on campus?
Lighting and visibility
Security personnel presence
Building access control
Peer behavior and culture
Other
Question: How confident are you in the university's emergency communication systems?
Very confident
Somewhat confident
Not confident
Not sure
When to follow up with "why?"
When a student selects a multiple-choice answer—especially if it indicates a safety issue or uncertainty—it’s smart to ask a follow-up “why?” to clarify their thinking. For example: A student picks “Somewhat unsafe”—you follow up, “What makes you feel this way?” This can turn a statistic into an actionable story.
When and why to add the "Other" choice?
Always add an “Other” choice if your answer set might miss unique perspectives. When students select “Other,” a follow-up question can uncover issues or ideas you haven’t even considered—unlocking unexpected insights that may steer your campus safety strategy.
NPS for campus safety surveys—should you use it?
Net Promoter Score (NPS) is popular for tracking loyalty and advocacy, and yes, it can be useful for a student survey about campus safety. The core NPS question—“On a scale from 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend our campus as a safe place to study to a friend?”—gives you a quick, benchmarkable measure of perceived safety. Over time, tracking this number helps you evaluate the impact of safety initiatives and communications. The NPS format also easily supports follow-up questions (e.g., “Why did you give that score?”), surfacing the themes driving your score up or down. Want to see how NPS looks in this context? Check our NPS campus safety survey generator for a practical example.
The power of follow-up questions
Automated follow-up questions elevate feedback—transforming short or vague replies into rich, actionable insights. Automatic AI follow-up questions let surveys dig deeper where it matters, in real time, giving you the detail that’s often missing from static, one-shot questions. With Specific, our AI actually reads the student’s answer and instantly asks targeted follow-ups, just like an expert researcher would, while keeping the conversation friendly and natural. This means no delayed email outreach—more thoughtful, relevant responses in-the-moment.
Student: “I don’t feel safe near the north parking lot at night.”
AI follow-up: “What is it about the north parking lot that makes you feel unsafe? Is it lighting, location, recent incidents, or something else?”
How many followups to ask?
In practice, 2–3 follow-ups is the sweet spot—enough to get clarity, but not overwhelm respondents. With Specific, you control this in our settings, and you can always let students skip to the next question if their answers are already clear.
This makes it a conversational survey. Each response shapes the next question, blurring the line between survey and natural chat. Students engage more deeply because it feels personal, not like ticking boxes.
AI survey response analysis: Even with all this unstructured feedback, it’s easy to analyze everything using AI. Tools like AI response analysis process open-text replies and summarize themes in seconds.
Give it a try—generate a survey and see how fast you can go from “I wonder what students really think?” to “Now I know, with context.”
How to prompt ChatGPT for effective campus safety survey questions
If you want to brainstorm campus safety survey questions with AI (like ChatGPT), here’s a simple prompt to start with:
Suggest 10 open-ended questions for student survey about campus safety.
AI always works better with context. If you describe your college, main concerns, or unique goals, you’ll get sharper results. Try this:
I'm a student affairs officer at a mid-sized public university interested in improving student perceptions of campus safety. Our main concerns are outdoor lighting, emergency communications, and recent reports of theft. Suggest 10 in-depth, open-ended questions for a conversational survey.
After you’ve got a good list, go a step further:
Look at the questions and categorize them. Output categories with the questions under them.
And once you see which areas you need to prioritize, drill deeper:
Generate 10 questions for the categories "emergency communication" and "outdoor spaces and lighting."
What is a conversational survey?
A conversational survey is not just a list of questions—it’s a chat-like, interactive experience where the respondent’s answers guide what comes next. Instead of filling in static forms, students engage in a natural exchange with the AI, who tailors follow-ups and keeps the discussion relevant. AI survey generators like Specific make this effortless, compared to the slow, manual scripting that traditional surveys require.
Manual Survey Creation | AI-Generated (Conversational) Surveys |
|---|---|
Build questions one at a time, test logic, lots of editing | Describe your goals in a prompt, let the AI draft and structure questions instantly |
Responses are often shallow (one-and-done) | AI probes for context, automatically follows up on incomplete or unclear replies |
Analysis is mostly manual—struggle with open text answers | AI summarizes responses, extracts themes, and lets you chat with your data directly |
Impersonal, low engagement | Feels like a chat—higher response rates, more connection |
Why use AI for student surveys?
AI survey generation gives you speed, flexibility, and depth. With a few prompts, you get a polished, conversational survey that can adjust to each respondent’s answers in real time. “AI survey example” and “conversational survey” are more than buzzwords—they describe the future of meaningful feedback collection.
Specific’s platform offers top-tier conversational survey experiences from start to finish. We make campus safety surveys (and analysis!) not just easier, but more impactful—students are heard, and you act with clarity. For a step-by-step tutorial, check out our how-to guide on creating a student campus safety survey.
See this campus safety survey example now
See what the best campus safety survey feels like—conversational, context-aware, and ready to deliver actionable insights for you. Get started and transform your feedback process into an engaging experience that truly empowers student voices.