Here are some of the best questions for a teacher survey about professional development, plus tips for crafting them effectively. We use Specific to generate teacher surveys in seconds—including smart followups for richer insights.

Best open-ended questions for teacher survey about professional development

Open-ended questions let teachers share real experiences, highlight unique needs, and surface ideas you might never expect. Sure, people are sometimes less likely to type out long responses—Pew Research Center found the nonresponse rate for open-ended survey questions can reach up to 50%, compared to just 1–2% for closed-ended ones [1]. Still, when you get genuine feedback, it’s often gold. Mixed-mode surveys (combining scores and open-ended responses) predict future behavior up to 27% better than ratings alone [3].

Pick a handful of open-ended questions—ideally no more than 10% of your total survey [5]—to spark richer stories. Here are my favorite 10:

1. What’s one area of professional development you wish was offered but hasn’t been?

2. How have recent professional development sessions impacted your teaching practice?

3. Can you share an example of a PD (professional development) experience that significantly helped you?

4. If you could redesign a PD session, how would you change it?

5. What hinders you the most when trying to apply new skills from PD?

6. Describe the most engaging PD session you’ve attended. What made it stand out?

7. How do you prefer to share new strategies or knowledge with colleagues after PD?

8. What resources or support do you need after PD to implement what you learned?

9. What topics would you like future PD to cover more deeply?

10. What advice would you give to the leadership team to improve PD sessions?

A well-timed open-ended question captures nuances that multiple-choice simply can’t. Still, keep in mind that open-enders take longer to answer and analyze, leading to potential response fatigue [4]. With Specific’s AI survey builder, you can keep the process efficient and engaging.

Best single-select multiple-choice questions for teacher survey about professional development

Single-select multiple-choice questions work best when you want to quantify experiences, benchmark satisfaction, or spot trends quickly. They’re easier for teachers to answer and require less effort than open-ended ones—which helps if you want to keep participation high and analysis straightforward.

Here are three solid examples for a teacher professional development survey:

Question: How would you rate the relevance of recent professional development topics?

• Very relevant

• Somewhat relevant

• Not very relevant

• Not relevant at all

• Other

Question: How often do you participate in voluntary professional development sessions?

• Monthly or more

• Several times a year

• Once a year

• Rarely/Never

Question: Which format do you find most effective for PD?

• Workshops

• Online courses/webinars

• Peer collaboration/PLCs

• One-on-one coaching

• Other

When to follow up with “why?” Often, a multiple-choice answer is just the start—the real insights come from probing “why” someone picked that option. For example, after "How would you rate the relevance of recent PD topics?", a follow-up might be, “What made a session feel most (or least) relevant to you?” That uncovers actionable detail rather than just a score.

When and why to add the “Other” choice? “Other” is your safeguard against missing unexpected answers. If a teacher chooses “Other” and explains, their followup comments can highlight fresh needs or gaps you hadn’t considered—sometimes this is where breakthrough ideas come from.

NPS-type question for professional development feedback

Net Promoter Score (NPS) isn’t just for businesses—it applies perfectly to teacher professional development too. NPS asks respondents how likely they are to recommend something (here, PD at your school/district) on a 0–10 scale, and follows up differently for promoters, passives, and detractors. This helps you track sentiment trends and priorities at a glance, and gives a benchmark you can watch improve year over year.

You can try creating a NPS survey for teacher professional development right now.

The power of follow-up questions

If you ask just one question and stop, you’ll almost always miss the real story. That’s why we use automatic follow-up questions—they’re the key advantage of a conversational survey. Specific’s AI can ask personalized, context-aware follow-ups as teachers reply, just like a skilled interviewer. This turns flat answers into complete stories, giving you the full context and deeper insights for every response—without endless back-and-forth over email.

• Teacher: “I didn’t find last month's workshop helpful.”

• AI follow-up: “Can you share what specifically made it unhelpful, or suggest how it could be more relevant?”

How many followups to ask? In our experience, two or three targeted follow-ups strike the right balance. Specific lets you set when the AI should stop and move to the next question—once you’ve gotten the clarity needed, there’s no risk of survey fatigue.

This makes it a conversational survey: Responses feel more like a natural exchange. Teachers don’t just fill out a form—they’re in a real dialogue, making the process more engaging for everyone.

AI response analysis, GPT survey analysis, easy survey themes: Even with lots of unstructured feedback, you can analyze all responses using AI. Specific’s built-in tools summarize, highlight themes, and let you chat with your results to discover actionable insights effortlessly.

Automated follow-ups are a new concept, so try generating a survey with them and experience how clear and comprehensive your teacher feedback can be.

How to write great prompts for ChatGPT or GPTs to generate teacher survey questions

If you want to brainstorm or customize your own survey in ChatGPT (or another AI), prompts make a difference. Here’s how to get started:

First, try a simple approach:

Suggest 10 open-ended questions for teacher survey about professional development.

But you’ll get even better results if you describe your goal, audience, and context:

I’m surveying a diverse group of K-12 teachers about their experiences with professional development in a large urban school district. The goal is to uncover what’s most/least useful and discover fresh ideas to improve PD. Suggest 10 open-ended questions that help achieve this.

Then, organize the output with another prompt:

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

Finally, pick the categories you care about most, and dig deeper:

Generate 10 questions for categories “Barriers to applying PD,” “Most valued PD topics,” and “Preferred formats for PD.”

What is a conversational survey?

A conversational survey uses AI to create a dialogue, not just a list of static questions. Instead of making teachers fill out a long form, we engage them in a natural, chat-like exchange—adapting each follow-up based on real answers, in real time. The process feels like talking with a curious peer or researcher, rather than filling a bureaucratic checklist.

Let’s compare the old way and the new way:

Why use AI for teacher surveys? You get richer data, higher response rates, and new insights in a fraction of the time. Specific’s AI survey builder eliminates the mental burden—no need to script every “what if,” logic path, or follow-up manually. You can learn more about how to create a conversational survey for teacher PD in minutes.

When you use Specific, you’re running the “best-in-class” of conversational surveys—fast, easy, and enjoyable for everyone. Responses are truly useful, and the experience feels more like a thoughtful conversation than homework.

See this professional development survey example now

Get inspired by a professional development survey that actually sparks insightful answers. Build your own in minutes—unlock better teacher feedback with conversational, AI-powered surveys.