Best questions for teacher survey about special education support

Here are some of the best questions for a teacher survey about special education support, along with practical tips to help you design them. With Specific, you can generate your own survey in seconds and start collecting deep insights right away.

The best open-ended questions for teacher surveys about special education support

Open-ended questions let teachers share experiences and ideas in their own words. While they often see higher nonresponse rates than closed-ended questions, they uncover valuable context that structured questions might miss. In fact, an industry study found that 81% of issues surfaced only through open-ended responses, revealing feedback that would have slipped through rating grids and scales [2]. Use these when you want authentic, unfiltered input or to discover problems you haven’t anticipated.

1. What are the biggest challenges you face when supporting students with special needs?

2. Can you describe a time when special education support made a significant difference for a student in your classroom?

3. What types of resources or training would help you feel more prepared to support students with special needs?

4. How do you currently collaborate with special education staff, and how could this be improved?

5. What gaps do you notice in our current special education support systems?

6. What strategies have you found most successful for differentiating instruction for students with special needs?

7. Which aspects of our special education program are most effective, from your perspective?

8. What additional technology or tools would enhance your ability to support all learners?

9. How can school leadership better support your work with students requiring special education?

10. Is there anything else you wish to share about your experience with special education support?

While open-ended questions can be illuminating, balance is vital—surveys that rely too much on them may see higher nonresponse rates (over 18% for some questions, versus just 2% for closed questions [1]). Pairing with selective closed questions keeps response rates high and lets you quantify key patterns.

The best single-select multiple-choice questions for teacher surveys about special education support

Single-select multiple-choice questions shine when you want to quantify experience across your team, or start conversations with simple choices before digging deeper. Teachers can quickly pick an answer, lowering friction—especially when time is limited. These are also great for launching into follow-ups or branching questions.

Question: How would you rate the overall effectiveness of current special education support at your school?

• Very effective

• Somewhat effective

• Not effective

• Not sure

Question: Which area of special education support do you feel needs the most improvement?

• Training and professional development

• Communication with special education staff

• Access to instructional resources

• Time available for collaboration

• Other

Question: How often do you collaborate with special education staff?

• Daily

• Weekly

• Monthly

• Rarely

When to follow up with "why?" Often, when you want to understand the reasoning behind a choice, ask "why?" as a follow-up. For example, if a teacher selects "Not effective" for overall effectiveness, you could follow up: “Can you share why you feel support is not effective?” This uncovers the root cause and gives you actionable insights.

When and why to add the "Other" choice? Whenever none of your listed options might capture someone’s real-world situation, "Other" gives space for unexpected input. A smart follow-up like “Please specify” can surface ideas or concerns you might never have imagined.

NPS question for special education teacher surveys: Should you use it?

The NPS (Net Promoter Score) is a classic for understanding overall sentiment. In an education context, it gauges how likely teachers are to recommend your special education support model to others. This gives a single, benchmark-able score that lets you track improvements over time. For a ready-made NPS survey, try this tool. It’s a simple question, usually phrased as:

• “How likely are you to recommend our special education support to other teachers?” (0 = Not at all likely, 10 = Extremely likely)

Following up with “Why did you give this score?” often uncovers the main drivers of satisfaction or frustration.

The power of follow-up questions

Follow-up questions are where AI surveys stand apart. Automated follow-ups from Specific use context from a teacher’s answer—asking for clarification, digging into problems, or exploring real examples. This encourages richer, narrative responses and saves researchers time otherwise spent emailing for more details. Most importantly, teachers feel like they’re having a thoughtful conversation, not just ticking boxes.

• Teacher: “Sometimes we don’t have enough time for individualized support.”

• AI follow-up: “Can you describe a situation when lack of time impacted your ability to provide support? What happened?”

How many follow-ups to ask? We suggest 2–3 follow-up questions for each core topic. Any more, and you risk fatigue; fewer, and you might miss vital details. With Specific, you can adjust follow-up depth and even let respondents skip ahead once enough context is captured.

This makes it a conversational survey: Each response guides the next question, mimicking a real interview rather than a static form.

AI text analysis is easy: AI response analysis tools from Specific summarize open-text replies, distill themes, and help you spot patterns—even in thousands of lines of teacher feedback.

Rich insights, faster: Most conversational surveys see much longer, more detailed responses than traditional surveys—53% with over 100 words, versus 5% in basic open-ended surveys [4]. Try generating a survey and see how the conversation flows—you’ll be surprised what stories emerge!

How to write prompts for ChatGPT to generate great survey questions

If you’d rather build your teacher survey questions with AI directly, start with clear prompts—then refine them by adding context about your goals or school environment.

Start with this:

Suggest 10 open-ended questions for teacher survey about special education support.

You’ll get better results when you provide context. Here’s how to add details:

We’re creating a survey for elementary school teachers to evaluate our current special education support. Please suggest 10 open-ended questions that focus on their needs, daily experience, and what would help them do their jobs better.

Once you have a question list, try organizing them:

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

Select the categories you want to go deeper on, then ask:

Generate 10 questions for categories “collaboration with support staff” and “training needs”.

This approach lets you quickly iterate and focus your teacher survey on what matters most.

What is a conversational survey?

A conversational survey uses AI to create a chat-like experience—asking questions in natural language, following up in real time, and adapting naturally to the respondent’s input. AI survey builders like Specific make this easy, fast, and surprisingly powerful compared to old-school methods.

Why use AI for teacher surveys?
With conversational AI, you get deeper, more honest responses—because teachers feel heard, not just surveyed. For every AI survey example you generate, you’re leveraging thousands of research hours distilled into better questions and follow-up logic. Learn more about how to create a teacher survey about special education support with Specific.

Specific delivers best-in-class conversational surveys, so teachers find the process smooth, natural, and worthwhile—while you get nuanced data that’s easy to make sense of.

See this special education support survey example now

Start your own teacher survey on special education support today to uncover insights you’d otherwise miss—Specific’s conversational AI will help you surface the feedback that leads to real change. Create, iterate, and analyze—all in one place, with deeper engagement in every response.