Student Interest Survey: 25 Questions and What to Do Next

A student interest survey is the first thing many of us hand out in September, and the first thing we forget by October. The forms go into a folder. The folder goes into a drawer. By the time we plan a unit the students in front of us are still strangers on paper, even though they told us in week one what they read, watch, worry about and want.

This post has 25 student survey questions sorted by purpose, a plan for running a get to know you survey in the first week, and the part that matters most: how to move the answers out of the drawer and into your planning.

What a student interest survey is for

Not for a display board. A good survey does three jobs: it tells you what will hold attention in examples and tasks, it tells you how each student learns best and what gets in the way, and it gives quiet students a way to tell you something they would never say in front of the class.

In the UAE I teach classes with four or five first languages and students who arrived last month beside students who have been in the school since KG. The survey is often the first time I learn which is which. That information changes seating, grouping and the examples I use for the whole term.

25 student survey questions, sorted by what they tell you

Interests (use in examples and tasks)

1. What do you do after school when nobody tells you what to do?
2. Name one book, show, game or channel you would recommend to the class.
3. If you could learn about anything for a week, what would it be?
4. What is something you are good at outside school?
5. Which sport, team or activity do you follow?
6. What job would you like to try for one day?

How you learn (use for grouping and support)

1. When a lesson is hard, what helps you most: an example, a partner, more time, or a diagram?
2. Do you prefer to work alone, in a pair, or in a group of four?
3. What is one thing a teacher did that helped you learn?
4. What is one thing that makes it hard to concentrate in class?
5. Where do you usually do homework, and is it quiet there?
6. How do you feel about reading aloud in class?

Language and background (use for materials)

1. Which languages do you speak at home?
2. Which language do you find easiest to read in?
3. How long have you been at this school?
4. Which school subject did you enjoy most last year, and why?
5. Which subject was hardest last year, and what made it hard?

This subject (use for the first unit)

1. In one sentence, what do you think this subject is about?
2. What is one thing you already know about the first topic?
3. What is one question you have about this subject?
4. Rate your confidence in this subject from 1 to 5.

Things I should know (private)

1. Is there anything that makes school harder for you right now?
2. What do you want me to notice about you this year?
3. Who do you go to when you need help?
4. Is there anything else you want to tell me?

Pick 12 to 15 for one survey. Twenty-five at once is too many for a Grade 4 class and too tiring for a Grade 10 class on day one. Keep the last five questions optional and private.

Running a get to know you survey in week one

For bilingual classes, give the questions in both languages or allow answers in either. A survey that only works in English only tells you about the students who are already confident in English.

What to do with the answers

This is the step that makes the survey worth the lesson it cost. Do it in the same week, before the answers go cold.

1. Write a class profile in six lines. Size, languages at home, how many prefer pairs, the top three interests, the common "hard to concentrate" answer, and the average confidence rating. This is the first paragraph of every lesson plan for the term.
2. Write one line per student that needs one: "new arrival, Arabic first, confident in maths, hates reading aloud". Only for students where something stood out.
3. Pick three interests for the first unit. If half the class follows football, the Grade 6 data-handling unit uses league tables. If several named a game, the Grade 8 probability starter uses it.
4. Act on the private answers the same day. A student who wrote "it is hard at home right now" needs a quiet word, not a note in a folder.
5. Plan the first differentiated lesson from the "how you learn" section. The pair and group preferences give you a seating plan; the "what helps most" answers give you the support options to offer.

Example: Grade 6 mathematics, data handling

A Grade 6 class survey showed most students followed football, a third preferred to work in pairs, and nine said "a diagram" helps most when a lesson is hard. The first unit was data handling. The teacher built the bar chart lesson around league results, planned the task for pairs, and put a worked diagram on every worksheet. The lesson was the same objective as the textbook. The examples and the structure came from the survey.

How TeachBuddy AI helps

In TeachBuddy AI the survey and the class profile live next to each other. Build the student interest survey in the survey tool with single choice, rating, yes or no and open questions, named or anonymous, and share it by link. Then put the six-line summary into a classroom profile: groups, languages, needs, what they already know. Every generator reads that profile, so the lesson plan generator and the worksheet generator use your students' context without you retyping it.

The profile is yours. TeachBuddy AI never writes to it silently; after a lesson it may propose an update from your reflection, and you approve each change. Also useful alongside the student survey: a parent questionnaire, which answers the questions a ten-year-old cannot.

Frequently asked questions

What are good student survey questions for the first day?

Ask what they do after school, which languages they speak at home, what helps when a lesson is hard, whether they prefer pairs or groups, and one private question about anything that makes school harder right now. Twelve questions is enough.

How long should a get to know you survey be?

Ten to fifteen minutes. Six to eight questions for lower primary, twelve to fifteen for older students. Keep the private section optional.

Should a student interest survey be anonymous?

Interests and learning preferences should be named, because you will use them per student. The private section can be anonymous for teenagers if that gets more honest answers, with a clear way to ask for help by name.

Want the survey answers to feed every plan you write this term? Create a free TeachBuddy AI account, run the survey, and describe the class once.