Here are some of the best questions for a high school sophomore student survey about sense of belonging, plus tips on creating impactful surveys. With Specific, you can instantly generate research-driven survey questions and launch in seconds.
Best open-ended questions for sense of belonging surveys
Open-ended questions open the door to richer, more nuanced feedback—perfect for understanding students’ feelings, experiences, and context. These questions let students share what matters most to them in their own words. Use open-ended questions when you want deep insights, anecdotal stories, or when you’re not sure what issues matter most. Here’s a list of the most effective ones for high school sophomores:
What helps you feel most included or accepted at your school?
Can you describe a time when you felt you truly belonged at school?
What could the school do to make students feel more connected or welcome?
Who do you rely on when you need support at school, and why?
What challenges or barriers make it harder for you to feel you belong?
If you could change one thing about your school community, what would it be to help everyone feel included?
How do teachers or staff make an impact on your sense of belonging?
Are there moments you’ve felt left out or isolated at school? What happened?
How do friends or classmates help you feel more comfortable in school?
What clubs, groups, or activities have helped you make new connections here?
Research points to the importance of these experiences—less than 51% of U.S. high school students say they feel a sense of belonging at school, and students with a strong sense of belonging are notably more likely to plan to graduate from their current school [1]. Qualitative questions like these reveal actionable ways to boost inclusion and engagement.
Best single-select multiple-choice questions for sense of belonging
Single-select multiple-choice questions help you measure trends, spot patterns, and quantify attitudes. They’re ideal at the start of a survey or when you want to compare results across groups or over time. It’s less intimidating for students to check a box than write a long response, which is helpful for building confidence before deeper follow-up.
Question: How much do you feel you “belong” at school?
A lot
Somewhat
Not much
Not at all
Question: Who do you feel most comfortable talking with if you have an academic or personal problem at school?
Teacher or staff
Friend
Family
Other
Question: Have you joined any clubs, groups, or activities at school?
Yes, multiple
Yes, one
No
When to followup with "why?" Follow-up “why?” questions add context and uncover the drivers behind responses. For example, if a student selects “Friend” when asked whom they rely on for support, a follow-up like “What is it about this friend that makes you comfortable seeking help?” reveals deeper insights. Building these branches gives your survey real conversational power.
When and why to add the "Other" choice? Adding “Other” ensures you don’t box respondents into limited answers. It invites unexpected discoveries—sometimes, students’ true support systems aren’t the usual suspects. When you add this, prompt a follow-up open text question so students can elaborate and uncover needs you might never have anticipated.
Should you use an NPS-style question?
Net Promoter Score (NPS) has become a staple in measuring sentiment and loyalty across many industries, and it can work for sense of belonging too. For high school sophomores, you might ask: “On a scale from 0–10, how likely are you to recommend your school to a friend as a place where they’d feel they belong?” The NPS format is powerful because it gives you a clear, benchmarkable number and lets you segment responses for targeted follow-up. For ideas or to launch this style of survey, check out our NPS survey generator for high school sophomore students.
The power of follow-up questions
Asking follow-up questions, especially with AI, drives richer responses and helps clarify ambiguities in real time. Specific’s AI-powered automated follow-ups act like a skilled interviewer, probing deeper when an answer is vague.
For instance:
High school sophomore: “I don’t really feel like I fit in.”
AI follow-up: “Can you share what makes you feel this way, or describe a time this happened?”
This quick clarification helps ensure you don’t get stuck with short, unhelpful answers. Without follow-ups, survey creators are often left guessing, or chasing down more details through endless emails—which is tedious for everyone.
How many followups to ask? Usually, two or three well-placed follow-up questions are enough. Give respondents an option to move on if they’ve said all they want. Specific gives you fine-grained control—set the depth so the survey remains smooth, not overwhelming.
This makes it a conversational survey: Each follow-up flows naturally, so your survey feels like a caring conversation, not an interrogation. That’s the core of a truly conversational AI survey.
AI-powered response analysis: Don’t worry about hundreds of unstructured responses—AI makes analysis a breeze (see our guide). You can synthesize themes, spot trends, and even chat with your results (how it works), no matter how many students responded.
Automated followup is a newer innovation—try generating a conversational survey and see how much more naturally students open up when the survey digs a little deeper.
How to prompt ChatGPT for better high school sophomore survey questions
If you use ChatGPT or any GPT model to design survey questions, good prompts make a huge difference. Start with something broad:
Suggest 10 open-ended questions for High School Sophomore Student survey about Sense Of Belonging.
You’ll get even stronger results if you provide background, objective, and context. Here’s an upgraded prompt:
I’m preparing a survey for high school sophomores at a diverse public school. My goal is to learn about students’ sense of belonging, experiences with inclusion or exclusion, what makes them feel supported, and what the school could do to help everyone feel welcomed. Please suggest 10 open-ended questions that explore these topics in student-friendly language.
Once you’ve gathered a set of draft questions, refine them with another prompt:
Look at the questions and categorize them. Output categories with the questions under them.
If you decide, for example, that you want more depth into peer relationships, or activities, prompt:
Generate 10 questions for the categories "peer relationships" and "school activities".
Iterate like this to easily tailor and deepen your survey content. For a more seamless experience, try our AI survey generator—it lets you chat with the builder, edit with natural language, and even auto-structure follow-ups with our AI survey editor.
What is a conversational survey?
A conversational survey feels like a thoughtful, live conversation—powered by AI, not clunky software or static forms. Instead of dumping a list of questions and hoping for rich replies, the survey adapts in real time, probing gently, clarifying answers, and capturing nuance. This is game-changing compared to the old way of designing surveys by hand.
Here’s how manual and AI-generated surveys stack up:
Manual Survey Creation | AI Survey Generator (Conversational Survey) |
|---|---|
Brainstorm question list from scratch | Describe your audience, goal, and context in plain language; AI generates expert questions |
Hard to script follow-up probes | Automatic smart follow-ups, dynamically tailored based on each response |
Flat and impersonal experience | Feels like chat; respondents open up more, data is richer |
Manual analysis, tough with open text | Full AI-powered analysis and summarization |
Why use AI for high school sophomore student surveys? It’s faster. It’s more accurate. It reduces mental load for creators and respondents. Most importantly: Students are more likely to engage, share, and give thoughtful input—especially when prompted by AI-powered follow-up questions. When just 51% feel a sense of belonging, it’s essential to make every answer count [1]. See how easy it is by following our step-by-step guide to creating your own survey.
Specific excels at building these conversational AI surveys, ensuring both creators and sophomores enjoy a smooth, friendly, and insightful experience at every turn.
See this sense of belonging survey example now
Launch a conversational sense of belonging survey tailored for high school sophomores: get more thoughtful replies, smarter analysis, and real-time follow-up—powered by AI and best-in-class design.