What to look out for
Top free survey tools for students.
5 Most Popular Free Survey Tools for Students
The online world is crawling with free software tools that allow students to build their own surveys. Having tried and tested them all, we’re giving you the lowdown on the 5 most popular free survey tools for students.
While most free survey builders offer the same features across the board, there are three things to look out for that aren’t necessarily included in every tool. These are:
1. Logic flows
Survey tools that include logic flows let you pose different questions to your respondents based on their answers to previous questions.
When is this useful? Consider the following scenarios:
- You want to ask relevant questions to different groups of participants, such as smokers and non-smokers. Did the respondent answer that they smoke? Then the following questions will be different from those posed to respondents who answered that they don’t.
- You want to create two different experimental conditions where the first group of participants is exposed to one soap advertisement, and the second group to another. The questions posed to respondents depend on the relevant soap advertisement that was shown to them.
- You wish to pose a qualifier question at the start of your survey to exclude minors from answering your survey. If a respondent answers that they are younger than 18 years old, they will be taken to the end of your survey, while qualifying respondents will be taken to your survey questions. (This use of logic flows is especially handy if you’re using a free survey exchange platform , since it prevents you from losing credits to non-qualifying respondents.)
Note: Some survey building tools do a really good job of presenting a clear visualization of how your survey’s logic flows. Others, not so much. A clear visualization of logic flow can save you tons of time and effort, so keep this in mind when picking an online survey tool.
2. Limitations
Many free survey tools put a limit to either the number of questions you can ask per survey, the number of respondents you can gather, or the number of surveys you’re allowed to create. With other tools, the sky's the limit. Keep an eye out for this, especially if you want to set up a longer survey that needs to collect more responses.
3. Ending pages
Looking to distribute your survey on free survey exchange platforms? Chances are you’ll have to edit the ending page of your survey to include a credit code for your respondents. Some survey tools allow you to do so, while others display a generic “thank you” page upon survey completion. Having the ability to add multiple ending pages is also important if you wish to make use of logic flows.
Keeping all this in mind, we’ve set up a structured review of the top 5 most popular free survey tools for students to find online:
#1: QUALTRICS
- No limitations: Qualtrics’ survey builder lets you create as many surveys as you like, with as many respondents and questions as you like.
- Logic flows: While Qualtrics offers the ability to create proper logic flows, it doesn’t have a clear visualization tool for it.
- Ending pages: Users can create multiple ending pages, which makes it ideal for distribution on survey exchange platforms, such as SurveySwap.
Since Qualtrics’ focus is on academia, most established universities have a license with them. This means that students and staff members can use the very powerful, paid Qualtrics survey builder for free. If your institution has a license with Qualtrics, we highly recommend using this tool to build your survey.
The catch: If your university or institution does not have an agreement with them, you’ll either have to use the free Qualtrics survey builder , which is quite limited in its features, or pay big bucks for the paid version (this starts at around €2500 per year).
#2: GOOGLE FORMS
- No limitations: There are no limits to the number of questions and responses you can get, which is very decent, seeing as the tool is entirely free.
- Logic flows: Although limited, Google Forms does offer logic flows that let respondents go to different sections depending on their previous answer. Still, you won’t find a visualization feature for logic flow here.
- Ending pages: You can only create one ending page per survey, which means all respondents can view it, whether they actually qualified for and completed the survey or not. Again, this isn’t ideal if you’re distributing your survey on exchange or paid platforms.
If your academic institution doesn’t have a Qualtrics account for students and staff, we would advise using Google Forms as the next best pick.
The catch: No catch here. Apart from the shortcomings as mentioned above, Google Forms is a useful survey building tool that makes for a good user experience.
(Honorable mention: Microsoft Forms is equally as good, with exactly the same features as Google Forms. The only downside is that you have to create a Microsoft account to use it if you don’t own one already.)
#3: TYPEFORM
- Limitations: TypeForm’s free survey tool only allows 10 questions and 100 respondents per user, but we’d still recommend you to use it. Why? Because its paid version actually isn’t all that expensive. Plus, it’s an incredible tool with some top-notch features.
- Logic flows: If you’re looking for a survey builder that allows you to create logic flows AND has a stellar visualization feature to go with it, TypeForm’s the way to go. This survey builder offers great user experience, which makes the creation process all the more enjoyable.
- Ending pages: Just like with Qualtrics’ survey tool, TypeForm lets you create ending pages to match your logic flows.
The catch: Like we said, if you want it all, you’re going to have to take a pass on TypeForm’s free version and opt for the paid survey builder instead. Still, you’ll be getting proper bang for your buck and have access to a super functional, user-friendly, and powerful survey builder. Besides, you probably won’t need it for more than a month, so just pay for your 30 days and cancel the subscription when you’ve got what you needed.
#4: SURVEYMONKEY
- Limitatio ns: SurveyMonkey only allows 10 questions and 100 responses per survey.
- Logic flows: This tool doesn’t give you the option to create logic flows.
- Ending pages : You can’t create an ending page when using SurveyMonkey, which is one of the tool’s greatest downfalls. No ending pages mean that you won’t be able to distribute your survey on exchange platforms, making data collection so much more laborious.
The catch: SurveyMonkey claims to be the most popular free online survey tool in the world, but if we’re being honest (and we always are), we don’t agree with that statement. The free version is incredibly limited in its features, and the paid plan is so expensive that it really isn’t an option for students at all.
#5: SURVEYSWAP
- No limitatio ns: SurveySwap’s survey builder allows you to create surveys without any limitations when it comes to the number and type of questions added, or the number of respondents needed. The tool is entirely free and there are no restrictions when it comes to the features you can use.
- Logic flows: This survey tool not only lets you create extensive logic flows, but also provides a no-nonsense visualization thereof that makes it easy for any user to stay orientated when adding new rules or conditions.
- Ending pages : You can create a custom ending page with SurveySwap’s survey tool and use logic flows to choose when it is displayed.
Yes, we’ve created our own survey builder and are now shamelessly including it among the top tools out there. But rest assured, we wouldn’t be doing so if we didn’t believe in our product’s worth. SurveySwap’s free survey tool came to be after seeing the frustrations students and researchers alike had to deal with when creating surveys. No tool had it all, and if they did, it didn’t come for free. Until now, that is.
The catch: There aren’t any. We built this survey tool to fill the gap in the market. It’s comprehensive, unrestricted and accessible – not the one or the other. And yes, it’s 100% free. If taking 30 seconds to create a free account with SurveySwap is a catch, then there it is. But why not see for yourself? Create your free survey now to put it to the test
When it comes to the most popular free survey tools for students, Qualtrics , Google Forms and SurveySwap’s survey builder are the way to go. If these aren’t available to you or you don’t feel like using them, it’s definitely worth it to pay TypeForm’s fee for one month.
Are there any free survey tools for students we missed, or anything you’d like us to review? Drop your suggestions in the comments, and we’ll take a look.
- What features should I look for in a free survey tool for students? Consider a survey tool with customizable question options, data analysis capabilities and the capacity to create logic flows. If you need many respondents, be sure to use a survey builder that allows unlimited responses. Look for platforms such as Qualtrics or SurveySwap’s free survey builder.
- Which free survey tools allow unlimited questions and responses? Survey tools like Google Forms and SurveySwap’s survey builder are both free and allow unlimited questions and responses. Qualtrics does the same, but only if you are enrolled in an academic institution that has a license with them.
- Which free survey tools are optimized for survey exchange platforms? Free survey builders such as Google and Microsoft Forms, Typeform, Qualtrics, and SurveySwap’s survey tool are all suitable for creating surveys that can be published on survey exchange platforms. These survey tools allow you to create custom ending pages containing a unique code to track your respondents – a crucial feature when using survey exchange platforms such as SurveySwap and SurveyCircle.
- Is there a limit to the number of surveys you can create with free survey tools? While some free survey builders do limit the number of surveys you can create with the tool, others allow you to create as many surveys as you’d like entirely for free. Examples of such tools include Google and Microsoft Forms, SurveyMonkey, and SurveySwap’s free survey creator.
- Do free survey tools limit the number of responses you can collect? Sadly, some free survey tools do limit the number of responses you can collect. Some even go as far as putting a cap on the number of questions you can ask. However, survey builders like Google Forms and SurveySwap allow you to ask as many questions as you like and collect as many responses as you need, entirely free of charge.
P.S. Is your survey all set up and ready to go? See how to find survey participants for free and get quality responses .
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10 Good Tools to Create Free Surveys and Polls
By Med Kharbach, PhD | Last Update: May 17, 2024
Tools to create free surveys and polls are the topic of our blog post today!
The purpose of this post is to share with you this collection of handy tools to use to create surveys and polls. These tools are simple and easy to use and offer a wide variety of features that enable you to design different types of surveys and polls. No coding knowledge is required.
Some of the features these survey tools offer include : access to pre-designed templates, insert various types of questions, add multimedia materials to your surveys, upload files, track analytics and audience interaction, generate reports, and many more.
Tools to Create Free Surveys and Polls
Here are our top suggestions for tools to create free surveys and polls
1. Zoho Survey
Zoho Survey is a good tool that teachers can use to create surveys and quizzes. Zoho Survey enables you to easily create your own surveys. It offers a wide variety of pre-made templates with the ability to edit and customize them the way you want. You can add different question types, drag and drop questions, upload your logo, add your own theme, and many more.
2. Mentimeter
Mentimeter is a polling tool that allows you to create interactive presentations and quizzes with real-time voting. The way it works is simple: use Mentimeter’s online editor to create interactive slides that embed different question types including Multiple Choice, Word Cloud, Open ended, Scales, Ranking, and Q&A.
When your quiz (Mentimeter calls it presentation) is ready, share generated the code with your participants who can join using any mobile device with Internet connection. Participants can answer questions and view their results in real time. Final results can be downloaded and exported for later analysis.
Jotform is a web tool that lets you create various types of forms including surveys, polls, and questionnaires. Jotform offers several features to facilitate your form creation including an easy drag and drop builder, tons of professionally designed templates, various customizable options, access to different sharing options, analytic reports, and many more.
4. Typeform
Typeform is a good form builder that you can use to create a wide variety of form types including: surveys, contact forms, questionnaires, quizzes, registration forms, polls, invitations and many more. Typeform provides a set of interesting features (some of which are interactive) enabling you to easily collect and share information in a secure way.
5. Poll Everywhere
Poll Everywhere is a platform that allows you to create live polls, surveys, Q&As, quizzes, word clouds, and several other interactive activities.
6. Google Forms
Google Forms is a great tool to use to create surveys, polls, and questionnaires. You can’t go wrong with Google Forms. It offers almost all the basic features you need to build your survey and for free. You can add various question types, insert images and multimedia materials, and share your finished surveys as URLs.
Kahoot is another great tools to use to create polls and surveys. It is basically a gamed-baed learning platform where you get to use the learning principles of games int your own educational activities. Kahoots are games and challenges you create using the tools provided by the platform. Your kahoots can embed various types of questions and answers. They can include media materials such as videos and images, and many more.
8. Quizalize
Quizalize is a gamified quiz and survey making tool that you can use to drive students engagement, increase their participation, and enhance their learning.As students take their quizzes and surveys, teachers gather important insights and analytic data about their performance and track students progress in real time.
These reports are especially useful in formative assessment providing teachers with key data to help them plan effective interventions, provide differentiated learning opportunities for students, and inform their lesson planning and teaching strategies.
9. SurveyMonkey
Survey Monkey lets you create and deliver online polls quickly and easily. Just compose your questions, email or post the link to your poll online, and get results.
10. Digital Clickers
In this collection I featured some of the best digital clickers out there. As you know, digital clickers are interactive learning technologies that provide teachers with an effective way to collect data about their teaching and engage students in learning. Clickers can be used for a various purposes. For instance, teachers can use them to conduct quick formative assessments using short quizzes, polls, exit tickets, surveys and more.
Final thoughts
In today’s digital age, the ability to gather and analyze data through surveys and polls is crucial, not only for educational purposes but also for broader applications across various fields. The tools we’ve explored—ranging from Zoho Survey’s flexible templates to the interactive real-time capabilities of tools like Mentimeter and Poll Everywhere—offer robust solutions to meet diverse needs. Whether you’re an educator looking to engage students, a researcher gathering data, or a professional seeking feedback, these tools provide the versatility and ease of use that can transform how you collect and interpret responses. Harnessing these technologies will enable you to make informed decisions and foster a more interactive and responsive environment, whatever your field or objective.
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Meet Med Kharbach, PhD
Dr. Med Kharbach is an influential voice in the global educational technology landscape, with an extensive background in educational studies and a decade-long experience as a K-12 teacher. Holding a Ph.D. from Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, Canada, he brings a unique perspective to the educational world by integrating his profound academic knowledge with his hands-on teaching experience. Dr. Kharbach's academic pursuits encompass curriculum studies, discourse analysis, language learning/teaching, language and identity, emerging literacies, educational technology, and research methodologies. His work has been presented at numerous national and international conferences and published in various esteemed academic journals.
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Center for Teaching Innovation
Resource library.
- Cornell Survey Research Institute
- Qualtrics (Survey Tool)
- Qualtrics Support
- So You Want to Survey Cornell Students
Survey Tools
What are survey tools .
Survey tools are online tools that can be used to electronically collect answers or responses to questions from a target audience. They feature a variety of question types, including multiple-choice, ranking, open-ended, and many others. Cornell supports the Qualtrics survey tool and Canvas has a survey feature that is available within the course.
Why Use Survey Tools?
Find out relevant background information such as background knowledge , prevalence of commonly held misconceptions, current opinions of course topics, and reasons for taking a course. Check student learning without doing a graded assessment with informal classroom assessment techniques . Measure the effectiveness of a particular teaching strategy by conducting pre/post surveys that allow you to assess and document both actual learning that takes place and attitude changes over time.
Lastly, collect mid-semester course evaluations by asking one or two questions about how your course is going. This gives you the opportunity to deal with any issues before the course ends, give insight into student learning and classroom climate , as well as demonstrates a willingness to listen to feedback/engage with students to improve the class.
Considerations for Using Survey Tools
- When creating an online survey for your students, keep the survey as simple and concise as possible, and design effective questions .
- Check the survey by completing it yourself prior to giving it to students.
- Before conducting the survey, explain why you are collecting the data and share whether or not the survey is anonymous. Express how much you appreciate student feedback and explain how valuable it is to you as you refine your course.
- If you are requesting open-ended feedback, for example, guide students on how to provide effective feedback by articulating the characteristics of effective and ineffective comments.
- Provide an incentive for students to complete the survey, such as by offering a credit point, or give them class time to complete it if you know each student has access to the internet on a personal device.
- If appropriate, ask students to predict what you might discover.
- Share your results with students and explain what the results mean and how they might influence your course.
Surveys in Canvas can be graded or ungraded, and can be anonymous as well. With anonymous surveys, often used to gather student opinions, results do not include any identifying information about the respondents.
Getting Started with Survey Tools
Contact the Center to set up a consultation to learn more about how to incorporate survey tools into teaching and learning. Several Resource Library items are also available to explore on your own.
- Blended Learning
- Communications
- Competency-Based Learning
- Crisis Management
- Curriculum Strategy & Adoption
- Decision-Making
- Digital Content
- Innovative Leadership
- Instructional Model Design
- Learning Walks
- New School Design
- Organizational Leadership & Change Management
- Personalized Learning
- Professional Development
- Remote Work
- Return Planning
- School Districts
- Social & Emotional Learning
- Statewide Initiatives & Consortia
- Strategic Planning
- Teacher Retention
- Teams & Culture
- Virtual Learning
By: Corey Ryan on July 2nd, 2024
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Comparing the 7 Best Survey Tools
Data | Surveys
Surveys should be a part of every school’s planning. As a former school district administrator responsible for surveys, I learned a lot about what to do and what not to do. Above all else, creating a listening culture in your school or district can transform your next initiative and your overall results in supporting student success.
We know that engagement surveys and feedback can:
- assess student perceptions and engagement;
- identify support systems for individual student success;
- evaluate a school’s climate;
- provide insight into professional learning opportunities; and
- support responsive leadership with ideation and prioritization.
Before selecting a survey tool, which I’ll share insight into at the end of this post, it is important to create a survey plan. Read on for some tips I’ve gathered to get started.
Creating Your Survey Plan
While we know that feedback from students, teachers and families is essential, we must have a purpose and direction to begin. Before starting your survey project, ask two foundational questions:
- What do you want to know?
- Why do you want to know it?
In my experience working with large school districts in Texas, schools and districts often collect data, do some basic reporting, and need help to make sense of it. Before you ask the questions, consider what you want to know.
Do you want to inform a specific decision? If so, what do you need to know to make that decision? Do you need new ideas? Do you want to measure competency? What about the rate of engagement or satisfaction?
Consider using an initiative planning tool and identifying a group of people who can help you.
Team Up - Get the People Together
With that design or project team, craft your theory of action. A theory of action is a hypothesis that says we will accomplish something if we do a specific action.
Let’s consider a brief example of a school district trying to inform professional learning strategies for its teachers by using a student engagement survey.
Theory of Action: We can provide teachers with high-quality professional learning if we understand their students’ experiences.
Now that your team has the theory, you can begin planning the actions to implement your plan. One action item is likely to be selection of a survey tool or service.
Watch our short Webinar about The 7 Best Survey Tools and what to consider when choosing one here:
What to Look for in a Survey Tool
Here are questions to consider when evaluating different survey tools or service providers.
- What formats do I want to distribute my survey in? What other customizations do I need (translations, accessibility, etc.)?
- How much support do I need for survey administration in my district? Do I need a survey service or a survey platform?
- Do I need support after my survey results come in? Do I need help with strategy or interpreting the data? Do I need support with additional engagement strategies, such as focus groups, empathy interviews, or learning walks?
- Do I need communication support during or after my survey? Do I need help with my school board? Do I need marketing support to increase participation?
Comparing 7 of the Best Survey Tools for Schools
I’m sure you have networked or used some of the following tools for school surveys already. For this post, I broke down the seven most well known survey options into three categories: do-it-yourself (DIY) tools, bulletin boards, and service providers.
1. DIY Survey Tools
Google Forms and SurveyMonkey are two popular tools if you have staff to create the survey, design the questions, distribute the survey, drive responses, and build out reports and insights into the data.
While DIY Tools offer much flexibility, they do not provide direct customer service, additional planning and support, or research-based techniques. These are the best used by districts with small budgets for engagement and research, as they are low-cost or no-cost. But, users beware, while there isn’t an additional fee for Google Workspace users in Google Forms, there is a cost associated with staff time and more significant risk because you lose out on extra support and the specific skills that survey experts bring to the design and analysis of these tools.
2. The Bulletin Boards
Online bulletin board tools allow individuals to leave open-ended responses to questions, giving opportunities for others to see those ideas, and in some cases, rank or prioritize those ideas. These are great tools for ideation and engagement but not the best for final decisions, evaluation, or diagnosis.
The two tools in the space I see most often are Jamboard and ThoughtExchange.
- Jamboard facilitates brainstorming and other planning strategies during our client workshops. It’s a great way to get easy and quick feedback, but much like DIY, there’s no support on question structure, customer services, reporting, or insights.
- ThoughtExchange is a more sophisticated Bulletin Board tool that allows users to submit ideas or “thoughts” and rate other participants' thoughts. I used this tool with a district to get ideas and to give people a space to share and listen to each other and it was effective for this purpose. While engaging, ThoughtExchange is not a tool designed to measure progress and growth in a diagnostic way. It provides more support than the DIY tools but not as much as our next category of surveys.
3. The Survey Service Providers
The difference between DIY or Bulletin Board options and Survey Service Providers is centered around the robust set of offerings beyond a platform. These providers not only administer surveys that track things like student engagement and family perceptions, but they also offer additional services to interpret data, dive deeper through workshops and focus groups, and advise action plans based on the data.
Panorama Education provides surveys to school districts, a technology or digital platform, some researched-back survey techniques, translation surveys, communications planning as well as support, reports, and insights into your data. K12 Insight is similar in that they provide robust services around survey administration. K12 Insight will also host data workshops with school and district leaders after a survey closes.
With Tripod and Education Elements , clients get access to the full complement of survey design and administrative support as other survey service providers with the additional strategic and ongoing support that we're known for. We work to:
- Unpack the school’s or district’s data.
- Identify support systems through analysis, prioritization, and more
- Support action planning by creating and facilitating teams responsible for acting on the data
- Facilitate conversations with your board of education or board of directors
- Create dashboards and data reviews to support a data culture committed to continuous improvement
Gathering feedback from students, families and teachers is an important initiative that should not be taken lightly, Perceptions uncovered in well designed surveys can inform many strategic initiatives and can form an important baseline from which to measure improvement.
If you’re interested in learning more about our suite of surveys, click here and a team member will connect with you.
About Corey Ryan
Corey is a former journalist and Chief Communications Officer. He loves stories, comedy, family, and Star Wars cartoons.
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