Here are some of the best questions for a parent survey about teacher communication, and tips on how to create them effectively for deeper engagement. With Specific, you can build and launch such surveys in seconds—no hassle, just actionable insights.
Best open-ended questions for parent survey about teacher communication
Open-ended questions unlock richer feedback, revealing context you won’t get from multiple-choice alone. These are best when we want to explore opinions, suggestions, and personal experiences—especially in education, where every family’s journey is unique.
Research consistently shows that robust teacher-parent communication improves student outcomes, making it crucial to ask thoughtful, in-depth questions[1]. Here are our top 10:
What’s been your overall experience communicating with your child’s teacher this year?
Can you share a time when teacher communication helped you support your child’s learning?
Are there areas where you wish teachers would communicate more or differently?
What types of information do you find most helpful from teachers about your child?
How do you prefer to receive updates or feedback from teachers?
Describe any challenges you’ve faced in reaching out to your child’s teacher.
Which topics do you wish teachers would discuss more often with parents?
How satisfied are you with the frequency of teacher-parent communication, and why?
What could the school or teachers do to improve their communication with parents?
Is there anything else about teacher communication you’d like us to know?
These questions invite parents to share what matters most to them, surfacing feedback schools can use to create communication practices that boost student success—especially given that 80% of parents want more communication from teachers about their child’s progress[2].
Best single-select multiple-choice questions for parent survey about teacher communication
Single-select multiple-choice questions are ideal when you need to quantify key trends or kickstart a feedback conversation. Sometimes, parents find it easier to choose from preset options before diving deeper, especially when they’re unsure where to begin. These questions make it easy to see at a glance where communication is working well and where there’s room to improve.
Three practical examples:
Question: How satisfied are you with the teacher’s responsiveness to your messages?
Very satisfied
Somewhat satisfied
Neutral
Somewhat dissatisfied
Very dissatisfied
Question: Which method do you most often use to communicate with your child’s teacher?
Email
School portal/app
Text message
Phone call
In-person
Other
Question: How frequently do you receive updates about your child’s academic progress?
Weekly
Monthly
Each grading period
Rarely
Only when there’s a concern
When to follow up with "why?" Once you get a multiple-choice response, always consider a follow-up question when you want to understand the "why." For example, if a parent selects "Somewhat dissatisfied" with responsiveness, a good direct follow-up is: "Can you share what made you feel dissatisfied with the communication response time?" This digs beneath the surface, clarifying what needs to change—just what high-quality AI surveys excel at.
When and why to add the "Other" choice? Add "Other" when your list of options can’t possibly cover every parent’s experience (which is almost always the case). This lets parents share unique preferences or highlight channels you may not have considered. With a smart follow-up—“Please describe your preferred method”—you’ll uncover valuable insights that structured lists alone can’t catch.
NPS question for parent survey about teacher communication
Net Promoter Score (NPS) isn’t just for brands and products—it’s a fantastic framework for education surveys, too. An NPS-style question for parent surveys about teacher communication helps measure overall satisfaction and predicts parent advocacy. When we ask, “On a scale from 0–10, how likely are you to recommend this school’s teacher communication to another parent?” we transform opinion into an actionable metric. Those who score low are prompted for what would improve their rating—a goldmine for improvement opportunities.
A tool like Specific will automatically handle the NPS logic, including tailored follow-ups for each response group; you can generate an NPS question survey pre-built for this topic.
The power of follow-up questions
When it comes to understanding parent feedback, follow-up questions are everything. That’s why we love using automated AI follow-up questions in our surveys. Specific’s AI doesn’t just ask a question and move on; it listens to every parent’s response, then asks smart, relevant follow-ups on the spot—like an experienced school counselor would.
Automated follow-ups gather deeper context quickly, saving you (and busy parents) the pain of endless email back-and-forth. This keeps communication natural and the insights actionable. Here’s a common scenario:
Parent: “I get updates sometimes, but I’m not always sure what they mean.”
AI follow-up: “Can you share an example of a communication that was unclear, and what would have helped make it clearer?”
How many follow-ups to ask? You rarely need more than 2–3 well-crafted follow-ups. After that, set your survey to skip to the next topic—once you get the context and detail you need. Specific makes it easy to control this setting, so you don’t frustrate respondents.
This makes it a conversational survey—instead of a cold survey, you’re having a human-like, natural conversation. It dramatically boosts both response rates and the quality of your insights.
AI response analysis, summarization—Don’t worry about all that messy text; AI makes response analysis effortless. With AI-powered analysis tools, you can instantly distill themes, pain points, and bright spots from every parent’s story.
Automated AI follow-ups are a leap forward in survey design. We encourage you to generate an example survey and experience it yourself.
How to prompt ChatGPT for parent survey questions about teacher communication
With AI tools like ChatGPT, you can generate practical, nuanced questions in seconds. For best results, start with a simple request:
Suggest 10 open-ended questions for parent survey about teacher communication.
But if you want sharper results, always add context about your school, goals, or what you want to learn. For example:
Pretend you are an education researcher at a K–8 school striving to better engage parents. Suggest 10 open-ended questions for a survey about teacher communication. Focus on transparency, accessibility, and feedback quality.
Once you have a list, ask ChatGPT to organize further:
Look at the questions and categorize them. Output categories with the questions under them.
Review the categories, then drill down with another prompt:
Generate 10 questions for categories like communication frequency, feedback clarity, and suggestion for improvement.
What is a conversational survey?
A conversational survey is a feedback experience that feels like texting with a thoughtful assistant, not checking boxes. Rather than overwhelming respondents with static grids, AI-powered surveys lead a dialogue: they clarify, encourage, and adapt in real time.
AI survey generation is fundamentally different from traditional/manual survey forms. Here’s how these two approaches compare, at a glance:
Manual Survey Creation | AI-Generated (Conversational) |
|---|---|
Design each question, logic, and follow-up by hand | Describe your goals—AI generates a complete survey instantly |
Rigid, form-based structure | Dynamic, chat-based conversation—adapts to each response |
Structured, but not responsive to ambiguity | Clarifies in real time, asks deeper follow-ups as needed |
Time-consuming to build and analyze | Analysis automated with AI—insights, summaries, even chat with the data |
Why use AI for parent surveys? Because it’s faster to build, easier to personalize, and proven to drive richer, actionable feedback from families. With an AI survey example created in Specific, you can launch and iterate quickly—while respondents feel truly heard.
If you’re curious how to create a conversational survey in just a few clicks, check out our step-by-step guide to making a parent survey about teacher communication, or start from scratch in the AI survey generator and customize to your needs.
Specific offers the best-in-class experience—both for creating AI surveys and for parents responding. This removes friction, so you get more honest, actionable input in less time.
See this teacher communication survey example now
Get clear, actionable feedback today—see how a conversational parent survey on teacher communication brings in real insights you can use. Create your own conversational survey in seconds to unlock higher response rates and quality input—powered by Specific’s advanced AI and instant follow-ups.