Here are some of the best questions for a student survey about peer relationships, plus practical advice on crafting them. If you want to build this survey in seconds using AI, you can generate one instantly with Specific.

Best open-ended questions for student surveys about peer relationships

Open-ended questions open the door to genuine student opinions and reveal nuances that structured formats can miss. They’re especially useful for capturing real emotions and stories—crucial in understanding peer dynamics.

Research consistently shows that peer relationships have a massive impact on students’ overall engagement and school experiences. When surveyed in a thoughtful, open manner, students will share insights that simply wouldn’t surface with multiple choice alone. For instance, a strong sense of peer support drives student confidence and learning engagement. [1]

Here are ten of our favorite open-ended questions for a student survey about peer relationships:

1. Can you describe a recent positive interaction you had with another student? What made it positive?

2. When do you feel most comfortable with your peers at school?

3. What challenges, if any, have you experienced when trying to make new friends here?

4. What qualities do you value most in a classmate or friend at school?

5. Have you ever felt left out by your peers? If so, tell us about what happened and how it made you feel.

6. In what ways do your classmates support you academically or socially?

7. How do extracurricular activities or clubs impact your friendships?

8. How comfortable do you feel reaching out to peers for help or advice?

9. What would make peer interactions at your school feel more positive?

10. How could the school better support healthy relationships among students?

Best single-select multiple-choice questions for student peer relationship surveys

Single-select multiple-choice questions are perfect when you want to quantify experiences or gently ease students into sharing. For sensitive topics, giving students quick options first often leads to more honest or thoughtful follow-up in later open questions. It’s especially useful when you want to map out trends—like spotting how many students feel they belong or take part in activities.

Consider these examples tailored for understanding peer relationships:

Question: How often do you feel supported by your classmates?

• Always

• Often

• Sometimes

• Rarely

• Never

Question: Which best describes your sense of belonging at this school?

• I feel like I belong

• I sometimes feel I belong

• I rarely feel I belong

• I don’t feel I belong

• Other

Question: How do you most often spend break times?

• With friends

• Alone

• With classmates but not friends

• In clubs or extracurriculars

• Other

When to follow up with "why?" Using a follow-up “why” is best when you want to understand students’ underlying motivations or feelings. For example, if a student picks “I rarely feel I belong,” follow up with: “Can you share what makes you feel that way?” That’s where the real insights happen—the reasons behind choices expose topics you can actually address.

When and why to add the "Other" choice? Include “Other” when you suspect your list might miss an option, or want to see if students identify outside common categories. Following up on “Other” lets you uncover unexpected trends and gives students a voice you hadn’t anticipated.

NPS-style question for student peer relationship surveys

The NPS (“net promoter score”) isn’t just for brands—I think it works brilliantly for understanding student peer relationships. It’s a single question that measures how willing someone is to recommend or vouch for their environment. For students, this might mean: “How likely are you to recommend this school to a friend based on your experiences with classmates?” This offers a quick pulse on social wellbeing and signals areas needing attention.

Adding a simple NPS-style question and a follow-up “why did you choose that score?” lets you rapidly benchmark social sentiment in your school community. You can generate an NPS survey for students about peer relationships here.

Why does this matter? PISA data showed a third of students worldwide feel they don’t belong at their school, highlighting the urgent need to listen and respond [2].

The power of follow-up questions

Anyone who’s ever slogged through unclear survey data knows: follow-up questions are where good surveys become great. They let you clarify, dig deeper, and truly understand the student’s point of view. Specific works by automatically asking the right follow-up for every answer, using AI to “listen” and probe in real time—like a skilled interview moderator, but at AI speed. If you’re curious, you can see details on automated follow-up questions here.

Follow-ups save a mountain of back-and-forth you’d otherwise need through emails or separate interviews. Instead, every answer gets context and clarity, sparking richer insights. Here’s how things can go without follow-ups versus with:

• Student: “I sometimes feel left out.”

• AI follow-up: “Can you describe a recent situation where you felt left out?”

Now you get an actionable story instead of a vague sentiment.

How many followups to ask? In most cases, 2–3 focused follow-ups unlock the detail you need without overwhelming students. Specific allows you to set a limit, and lets students move on if they’ve already explained themselves.

This makes it a conversational survey: Seamless follow-ups, powered by AI, turn a boring form into a natural, comfortable conversation—students forget they’re “filling out a survey.”

AI analysis, unstructured text, response themes: Even with all the open-ended text, AI makes it painless to analyze the responses and spot big themes. See more on using AI to analyze survey feedback.

Automated, conversational follow-ups are a new way to survey—try generating a survey and see how much easier and more insightful the experience becomes.

Prompting ChatGPT to generate great questions

ChatGPT and similar tools can spark some seriously creative survey questions if you structure your prompts well. Start simple for raw ideas, then layer in context for higher quality:

Try this to gather broad ideas:

Suggest 10 open-ended questions for student survey about peer relationships.

But—AI works best when you provide more detail, like your goals or unique school situation. For example:

We are a middle school where about a third of students participate in extracurricular activities. Suggest 10 open-ended questions for student survey about peer relationships, focusing on inclusivity and club participation.

Once you have a list, ask ChatGPT to help organize the questions:

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

Finally, you can focus on categories that matter most:

Generate 10 questions for categories “support from peers” and “sense of belonging”.

What is a conversational survey?

Conversational surveys are interactive, chat-like interviews where the AI asks questions naturally, responds to your answers in context, and nudges you for richer detail. It’s the opposite of a stiff, one-way form: you get a flowing, back-and-forth conversation that students are used to from messaging apps.

This approach is a game-changer when compared to manual survey creation or classic survey tools:

Why use AI for student surveys? The AI survey example approach democratizes research: everyone can build truly effective surveys quickly, even without deep question design skills. It means faster, richer feedback from students, less researcher workload, and far more actionable data on peer relationships or any other key topic.

Specific delivers best-in-class conversational survey UX, powering feedback collection that is smooth, intuitive, and genuinely helpful—both for those creating surveys and those taking them. If you want a guide, see our advice on how to create a student peer relationship survey.

See this peer relationships survey example now

Start creating a richer, more authentic student survey and experience first-hand how AI-driven conversational surveys make deep insights effortless.