Best questions for elementary school student survey about counselor support

Here are some of the best questions for an elementary school student survey about counselor support, plus tips on creating a strong question set. If you want, you can generate your own AI-powered survey with Specific in seconds.

Best open-ended questions for elementary school student surveys about counselor support

Open-ended questions help us understand how students really feel and think about their counselor experience. These questions let students use their own words, revealing new insights and sometimes problems we wouldn’t spot with just checkboxes. Even though open-ended questions sometimes get fewer answers (Pew Research found 18% or higher nonresponse rates, compared to just 1-2% for closed-ended questions [1]), they often reveal issues that would never surface in a simple multiple choice—like one study where 14% who chose “good” or “very good” on a closed question shared negative feedback openly [2]. Here are 10 open-ended questions perfect for student voices:

1. What do you like most about visiting your school counselor?

2. Can you tell me about a time your counselor helped you with a problem?

3. Is there anything you wish your counselor would do differently?

4. How do you feel after you meet with your counselor?

5. When do you think it’s most helpful to talk to your counselor?

6. What would make it easier for you to talk to your counselor?

7. Can you describe a time when you felt your counselor really listened to you?

8. What topics or issues do you want help with from your counselor?

9. How could your counselor make school feel safer or happier for you?

10. If you could change one thing about counselor support at school, what would it be?

Best single-select multiple-choice questions for these surveys

Single-select multiple-choice questions are great when you want quick-to-analyze, quantifiable feedback. Kids may find it easier to pick a choice than type out an answer—so these questions work well to start conversations or get baseline data. This format also helps get clearer responses and avoids blank answers, which is important given open questions can have much higher nonresponse, even in short surveys [1]. Here are three effective examples for elementary school students on counselor support:

Question: How comfortable do you feel talking to your counselor?

• Very comfortable

• Somewhat comfortable

• Not comfortable

• I haven’t met my counselor

• Other

Question: How often do you see your school counselor?

• Every week

• Once or twice a month

• Only when something’s wrong

• Never

Question: What kinds of topics do you talk to your counselor about?

• Schoolwork or grades

• Friendship or social issues

• Feeling worried or upset

• Family things

• Other

When to follow up with "why?" If a student picks an option but you want to learn their reason, simply ask “why?” as a follow-up. Say a student chooses “Not comfortable” when asked about talking to their counselor—you might ask, “Can you share what makes it hard to talk to them?” This single “why” can unlock important details about trust or barriers.

When and why to add the "Other" choice? Include "Other" to make sure students don’t feel boxed in by the choices. When “Other” gets picked, open up a text field for the student to add their own words or concerns—these responses can uncover surprising new issues or perspectives we hadn’t considered before.

NPS survey question for counselor support

NPS (Net Promoter Score) is a simple way to measure overall satisfaction—or in this case, how willing students are to recommend their counselor to a friend. While NPS is sometimes seen in business or parent surveys, it can also work for elementary students if you phrase it in a kid-friendly way and use a 0-10 scale with relatable language. This is a strong, simple metric for capturing how students truly feel about support, and it’s easy to benchmark and track over time. You can generate a NPS survey for this topic with Specific and see how the conversation unfolds.

The power of follow-up questions

Follow-up questions can be the secret sauce in any conversational survey. Open-ended responses, especially from younger students, can be unclear or incomplete—which is where smart follow-up questions change the game. If you’re curious about how this works inside a survey, check out this write-up on automated follow-up questions in surveys.

Specific’s AI can ask context-aware, real-time follow-ups, just like an attentive human interviewer. That means if a student gives a short or vague answer, the AI smoothly asks for details—helping you collect richer, more useful insights almost instantly. This is a huge time saver compared to following up with students manually later. Plus, it feels natural and non-intrusive, like a caring conversation.

• Elementary student: “I don’t like going to the counselor.”

• AI follow-up: “Can you tell me what about it feels uncomfortable for you?”

How many followups to ask? In most cases, 2–3 follow-ups is plenty. You want to explore deeply but not overwhelm. With Specific, you can set these limits, and the survey will smoothly move students forward as soon as you have the context you need.

This makes it a conversational survey—more of a back-and-forth exchange than a rigid form. This format is comfortable for kids and produces honest, unrehearsed answers.

Analysis with AI: Even though open-ended questions can create lots of unstructured responses, Specific’s response analysis tools powered by GPT make it easy to see the themes and compare answers. Take a look at how to analyze responses from elementary student surveys with AI.

Automated follow-ups are a breakthrough feature. Try building a survey just to experience how much richer your data will be.

How to prompt AI to generate great survey questions

The right prompt makes all the difference when crafting survey questions with AI tools like ChatGPT. For example, just ask:

Suggest 10 open-ended questions for elementary school student survey about counselor support.

If you want even better results, go beyond a generic prompt. Share more detail—who the students are, your school’s challenges, or which counselor services you want to explore. Try this expanded version:

Suggest 10 open-ended questions for elementary school students in grades 3–5 about their experience with the school counselor. The goal is to find out how students use counselor support, barriers to accessing it, and ideas to improve the experience.

Let AI organize your questions for you, making it easier to focus your survey:

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

If you see categories you want to explore, drill down:

Generate 10 questions for categories "Barriers to accessing the counselor" and "Suggestions for improvement".

What is a conversational survey?

A conversational survey is a dynamic, chat-like interaction, where questions flow naturally and the survey adapts in real time based on answers. This is a huge step up from traditional, static survey forms that just collect checkboxes with no follow-up or clarification.

Why use AI for elementary school student surveys? An AI survey generator quickly crafts questions tuned to young respondents, making it simple to launch, iterate, and analyze rich feedback. Because the process is conversational, it actually increases participation among kids—especially when surveys are short and focused [3]. If you want to see how to actually put this together, take a look at a complete guide to creating a student survey on counselor support.

We’ve learned at Specific that best-in-class conversational surveys make the feedback process easy and—surprisingly—fun, both for you and for your students.

See this counselor support survey example now

Curious how conversational surveys can transform the way you hear directly from students? Build your own elementary school student survey about counselor support and discover unique perspectives—faster, smarter, with deeper insights.