If you really want to get to the heart of what your students or teachers think and feel about their experience at your school, craft a school perception survey. It’s an excellent tool for understanding their attitudes, opinions, and experiences.
In this post, we’ll give you the step-by-step method of creating an effective student perception survey that allows you to really get to know your students. First, let’s address some commonly asked questions about this survey.
What is a student perception survey?
A student perception survey is a type of survey directed at finding out more about the student’s experience at the school through carefully curated questions.
What is included in a school perception survey?
A school perception survey is a broader survey. While it aims to gather insight regarding the perception of the school, it does so by collecting feedback from multiple groups within the school community, such as students, parents, teachers, and staff.
Student perspective survey - is it different?
Yes. A student perspective survey is different from a school perception survey in the sense that it is aimed only at students, who are a subset of the larger school community. A school’s community includes students, teachers, parents, and staff.
Why are school perception surveys important?
School perception surveys are important because they provide valuable insights into how different members of the school community—students, parents, teachers, and staff—view the school.
When you have a clear picture of the perception of your school in your stakeholder’s eyes, you can implement changes that enhance it. Positive changes so implemented will lead to a better learning environment and educational outcome for your students.
Like parent surveys and similar to student surveys, school perception surveys are tools designed to make your educational institution better.
How to create a student perception survey questionnaire
When considering where to start crafting your student perception survey, there are three factors to consider: ease of use, cost, and accessibility. One platform that checks all the boxes is Google Forms. Here are the steps to creating an effective student perception survey in Google Forms.
Step 1: Create an anonymous Google Form
Navigate to your Google Forms.
Click on the ‘Blank form’ button to start a new form.
Title your form appropriately. Then, the first thing to do is to make the form anonymous. This is so that students feel safe and comfortable providing honest feedback without fear of judgment or repercussions.
When anonymity is guaranteed, students are more likely to share their true feelings about teachers, classroom experiences, and the overall school environment. Google Forms doesn’t have a dedicated setting for anonymity, but you can still ensure that your respondents remain undisclosed. Learn how to make Google Forms anonymous.
Step 2: Be clear about the goal with your description
Now, you can enter a description under the title of your survey. It’s vital that your description is clear. This is because different surveys, such as those on student satisfaction, classroom environment, or teacher effectiveness, often overlap in content and questions.
Establishing the specific intent of the survey helps students understand what kind of feedback is needed, making their responses more relevant. Without clear direction, students might confuse the survey with other forms of feedback they've provided, leading to generic or unfocused answers.
Step 3: Ask them to rate how they feel about school
Next, edit the untitled question to add your first question and choose the linear scale questions format.
Click the ‘Add question’ button in the floating menu to add more questions like:
- On a scale of 1 to 5, how do you feel about your classroom? (1=terrible and 5=amazing)
- On a scale of 1 to 5, how satisfied you feel about your class teacher? (1=very dissatisfied and 5=very satisfied)
All these are linear scale questions. Linear scale questions are great for a school perception survey because they allow you to gauge participants' opinions across a range. This helps capture the intensity of their feelings, offering more nuance than simple yes/no questions. Learn how to add linear scale questions in Google Forms.
Step 4: Ask them targeted open-ended questions
Along with linear scale questions, it’s essential to ask some targeted open-ended questions as well. This is because while linear scale questions offer quantitative data, open-ended questions invite detailed, qualitative feedback that reveals nuances.
The goal of a student perception survey is to improve the classroom experience, and asking students open-ended questions can offer insights into solutions for areas that need improvement as well. So add questions like:
- If you had to change one thing about your school, what would it be and why?
- If you had to change one thing about your classroom, what would it be and why?
- Would you recommend this school to someone? If yes, why?
Choose the paragraph question format for these questions. Learn how to add open-ended questions to Google Forms.
Step 5: Give them control over their feedback
After targetted open-ended questions, you should leave space for unguided feedback on your school perception survey. Unguided open-ended questions give students the freedom to offer their unfettered perceptions about the school and school-related aspects. These could be questions like:
- What changes would you suggest to improve your learning experience?
- Is there anything else you'd like to share about your school or teachers?
Opt for the ‘paragraph’ question format for these questions.
Step 6: Collect results and observe outcomes
Now, all that’s left to do is share your survey with your students and wait for their responses. You may also want to collaborate with school staff to finalize the survey before sending it out to be filled.
Sharing and collaborating on a survey are two separate functions in Google Forms, and it’s important to distinguish between them. Learn how to share a Google Form and allow access to collaborators.
Once you’ve shared the survey with the students and have started receiving responses, you can rely on Form Publisher to organize your responses so that you can analyze them at your own convenience.
Organize your student perception survey results better with Form Publisher
Here’s how Form Publisher helps organize your responses. When someone responds to your survey, this add-on automatically converts the response into the document format in the PDF or WordDoc file format. Then, it automatically stores it in a file destination of your preference on your Google Drive.
All this means that when you sit down to analyze the responses, you don’t have to search Google Forms for every form response individually. They’re already there in your Google Drive, waiting for you! Explore Form Publisher!