Here are some of the best questions for a student survey about sense of belonging, and tips on how to create them. If you want to build one quickly, you can generate an interactive, conversational survey in seconds using Specific.
The best open-ended questions for student surveys about sense of belonging
Open-ended questions give students space to express themselves in their own words. You get access to deeper context, new perspectives, and experiences you wouldn’t capture through checkboxes. They’re especially good when you want honest, raw input—perfect for understanding a student’s sense of belonging. This often leads to richer qualitative data you can later analyze with AI-powered tools.
Can you describe a time when you felt you truly belonged at your school or university?
What kinds of activities or groups make you feel most included on campus?
Have you ever felt left out at school? If so, what happened and how did you feel?
In your own words, what does "belonging" mean to you here?
Is there anything that would help you feel more connected to others at your school?
How do staff and teachers influence your sense of belonging?
How has your sense of belonging changed since you started your studies?
Can you share a story about someone helping you feel welcome?
Do you feel comfortable being yourself around your classmates and teachers? Why or why not?
What advice would you give the school to help all students feel more included?
Using open questions like these often uncovers major themes—sometimes ones you never even considered. It’s important because a student’s sense of belonging is tightly linked to their academic performance and well-being; research shows a positive correlation between university belonging and higher GPAs, and students with higher belonging average about 10% better grades than those who feel disconnected. [1][2]
The top single-select multiple-choice questions for student surveys about sense of belonging
Single-select multiple-choice questions are great when you want to quantify responses or make things easy for students: sometimes picking from a few clear options is less daunting than writing out a full answer. This approach helps kick off the conversation, after which you can dig deeper with follow-ups.
Question: How much do you feel like you belong at this school or university?
Very much
Somewhat
Not much
Not at all
Question: Which of the following best describes your main source of connection here?
Clubs or student groups
Classes
Friends
Staff or teachers
Other
Question: How often do you participate in school activities or events?
Regularly
Sometimes
Rarely
Never
When to follow up with “why?” It’s smart to use a follow-up question when you want to understand the motivation behind an answer. For example, if a student selects “Not much” for belonging, follow up with: “Can you share what makes you feel that way?” The “why” adds rich context, making your data much more actionable.
When and why to add the “Other” choice? Include “Other” whenever none of the listed options may fully reflect the respondent’s experience. This allows students to share unique circumstances. Following up on “Other” uncovers insights you didn’t anticipate, helping you avoid blind spots.
NPS question for student sense of belonging surveys
The Net Promoter Score (NPS) question isn’t just for business; it works really well in academic settings too. The idea: ask students how likely they are to recommend the school to others if they feel a genuine sense of belonging. NPS gives you a simple, powerful, and quantifiable benchmark—and you can split responses by “promoters”, “passives”, and “detractors” for deeper analysis. Paired with follow-up “why” questions, NPS can uncover the root factors that drive loyalty—or disengagement. See an NPS survey for students about sense of belonging on Specific.
Studies have shown that fostering a sense of belonging leads to better grades, fewer absences, and fewer discipline problems in students. A well-designed NPS-type question can be a leading indicator for these broader outcomes. [3]
The power of follow-up questions
Follow-up questions make your surveys truly conversational. Instead of getting stuck with incomplete or vague answers, you can ask for clarification in real time—and Specific automates this process with AI-powered follow-up questions that adapt based on the student’s previous answer and context. It’s like having an expert researcher conduct a one-on-one interview at scale.
For example:
Student: “I struggle to feel like I fit in.”
AI follow-up: “Can you tell me more about what situations make you feel that way?”
Student: “The clubs here aren’t for me.”
AI follow-up: “Have you tried starting a new club or finding others with similar interests?”
This approach—especially for open-ended or “Other” responses—unlocks richer insights you can act on immediately.
How many followups to ask? In most cases, 2–3 follow-up questions are enough. You can also enable a setting to skip to the next question once you’ve gathered the information you need. Specific lets you easily configure this, so you get depth—without fatigue.
This makes it a conversational survey because students feel heard and understood, instead of just ticking boxes. The back-and-forth flow boosts engagement and honesty.
AI analysis of survey responses. Even with lots of unstructured answers, it’s easy to summarize and analyze responses—thanks to AI. See how to analyze survey responses using AI for a student sense of belonging survey for more on how to turn qualitative data into actionable insights.
These AI-backed follow-ups are fairly new, so give them a try—generate your first survey and experience the difference in conversational depth and data quality.
Prompts for AI to generate great survey questions
If you want to create smart, tailored questions fast, prompt-based survey creation is the way to go. It’s powerful, especially when you add specifics about your goals and audience. For example:
Start with a broad prompt:
Suggest 10 open-ended questions for student survey about sense of belonging.
Next-level: always give more context for better results. For instance:
I’m running a survey for first-year university students who may come from different countries. My goal is to learn what helps them feel included and what barriers exist. Suggest in-depth open-ended questions to explore this.
Then, categorize the questions for more structure:
Look at the questions and categorize them. Output categories with the questions under them.
Finally, dive deeper into topics that matter most by asking:
Generate 10 questions for categories like “school support”, “peer relationships”, and “activities/clubs”.
What is a conversational survey?
Conversational surveys use natural language and dynamic, adaptive questions to create a chat-like feedback process. They feel less like an exam and more like a real, human discussion—students open up and provide more honest, useful answers.
With traditional survey forms, you get rigid questions, often limited insights, and lower engagement. With AI survey generation, you simply enter your context (or use a template), and the AI drafts thoughtful, relevant questions. Real-time AI follow-ups explore responses further, while analysis tools help you make sense of it all—no need to manually comb through endless text boxes.
Manual Surveys | AI-generated Surveys |
|---|---|
Hand-crafted, time-consuming to set up | Quickly created with prompts or templates |
No real-time adaptation or personalized follow-ups | Adaptive AI follow-ups for deeper understanding |
Difficult to analyze open-ended responses at scale | AI-powered summaries and insights |
Static forms, less engaging | Conversational and interactive UX |
Why use AI for student surveys? AI-generated conversational surveys are far more engaging for students. They adapt on the fly, creating a virtual interview that digs deeper than any static form. Plus, you can scale up your research and analysis tremendously—get qualitative insight, faster and with less manual effort.
If you want to learn exactly how to set up a survey like this, we wrote a guide on how to create a student sense of belonging survey using Specific or any other tool. You can also use the AI survey generator from scratch—just give it a prompt, and it’ll do the rest.
Specific offers one of the smoothest, best-in-class user experiences for conversational student surveys—making it easy for both survey creators and students to participate and gain meaningful insights.
See this sense of belonging survey example now
Get started with a student sense of belonging survey and capture the real stories behind the numbers. Personalize, engage, and dig deeper—all in a few clicks.