10 academic survey examples for effective research

Take the lead in your academic journey—uncover insights like a professor with powerful academic surveys.

Academics can use surveys to test hypotheses about attitudes and behaviors, as well as to understand trends and perceptions. Test your intuitions with open-ended questions first and get rich qualitative data. For longitudinal research, repeated survey measures can help you establish a baseline and track changes over time.

This guide will cover academic surveys, their purposes, how to use them, and provide example questions along with 10 templates.

Related: Why are surveys important in research?

An academic survey is a research tool used by researchers in educational or scholarly settings to explore, test, or validate ideas and theories. These surveys are typically structured and methodical, designed to collect both quantitative and qualitative data.

Academic surveys are a vital tool for students, educators, and researchers to collect valuable data for their research projects. There are many benefits of using academic surveys, including: 

Academic research surveys are essential tools for gathering data and offer insights into various research areas. These examples of academic research surveys will highlight different fields of study and types of commonly used surveys.

A university instructor evaluation survey is designed to collect structured feedback on faculty instruction. Our University Instructor Evaluation Survey Template provides actionable data to help instructors refine their teaching methods and enhance course delivery.

A university teaching assistant evaluation survey gathers student feedback on the performance of teaching assistants. Our Teaching Assistant Evaluation Survey Template addresses the limited oversight of TA contributions and offers insights for enhancing support and improving mentorship.

A university faculty satisfaction survey evaluates faculty well-being and institutional support. Our University Faculty Satisfaction Survey Template helps raise low morale and enhance retention. It keeps staff informed of workplace improvements and policy changes.

A University Student Satisfaction Survey Template evaluates student experiences across services to identify and address gaps in student support. Regularly administering this type of survey can enhance student retention and improve campus life. 

Our University Student Graduation Survey Template gathers insights from recent graduates to address the lack of understanding surrounding post-graduation readiness. This survey is instrumental in shaping future programs and enhancing alumni engagement.

Our Course Evaluation Survey Template assesses the effectiveness of court content and instruction through a consistent feedback mechanism. The survey results guide curriculum updates and enhance teaching quality. 

An Alumni Survey Template helps educational institutions maintain connections with graduates and evaluate long-term outcomes. It fosters alumni engagement and guides development strategies and network expansion. 

An education demographics survey is designed to collect demographic data to support diversity initiatives. The Education Demographics Survey Template can be used to identify equity gaps and inform the development of inclusive policies and reporting. 

Explore gender representation and experiences in education through a gender school survey. Our Gender School Survey Template helps to address gender disparities and support inclusive education planning. 

A social support survey assesses students’ access to social and emotional support at school. Our Social Support Survey Template can help guide the development of effective intervention strategies and identify campus resources.

Using academic surveys enables researchers to gather insightful data that supports their hypotheses. But how do you effectively use surveys in academic research? There are many different ways to utilize surveys in academic settings.

Launching a large-scale or costly research project? Surveys can help validate ideas by providing a glimpse into the insights available. Testing your methodology with an online survey and a convenience sample first can help you catch any errors or confusion early on, saving you time and money.

Related: Survey research for your academic papers

Surveys help you reach a subset of your target population, even before your research project begins. Before you test your hypothesis, determine what method you’ll use to reach your target population. What’s the best way to reach them—email, SMS, maybe a QR code? Start small by testing your surveys on a small population before determining what survey methodology you need for your academic research. SurveyMonkey Audience can help you find that target population in just a few clicks.

Want to research the long-term impact of something? Longitudinal studies are key for tracking changes over time. You may be analyzing the impact of public health awareness programs, economic policy, and energy practices on specific demographics. Academic surveys can help you obtain a baseline or even benchmark against other industries.

Future educators can use surveys to gather feedback during internships or training, gaining valuable insight into how they present themselves in the professional world. Use the feedback you receive on your practicum, internship, graduate student research, lab work, or student teaching to guide your continued skills development. 

Benchmarking survey data against industry standards or existing research helps validate your findings and strengthen their real-world relevance. It can also uncover trends, highlight gaps, and spark new research questions by revealing where your data aligns—or diverges—from the norm.

Academic surveys are a valuable tool for validating and refining research methods. Whether you're a student, educator, or researcher, surveys can help test clarity, ensure reliability, improve research design, and enhance the overall quality of your work from the start.

Collecting baseline data provides a crucial starting point for measuring change over time. Academic surveys make it easy to capture initial attitudes and behaviors, allowing researchers to assess the impact of new variables and determine effectiveness through post-intervention comparisons.

Reaching the right audience is key to successful academic research. Sending preliminary surveys can help identify the most effective distribution method—whether by email, SMS, embedded web links, or QR codes—so you can maximize response rates and data quality.

Related: Ways to conduct data gathering

Now that you understand how to use academic surveys, let’s delve into some example questions. Here are a few examples of survey questions for various topics. 

Explore patient demographics, behaviors, access to healthcare, gender health issues, and community outreach programs in surveys, especially when addressing sexual orientation and gender identity in medical research.

SurveyMonkey offers an extensive selection of healthcare questionnaires and medical research survey templates.

Use health and lifestyle survey questions to gather information from research subjects about their daily lives. You can learn about nutrition, exercise routines, smoking habits, and more, and then connect that data to demographics and behavior segmentation strategies to gain a deeper understanding of the lifestyles of specific populations.

Use templates from our collection of education surveys, school, and academic online survey templates for research projects on family and school relationships, educational outcomes, school climate, online learning programs, student satisfaction, and more. 

Correlate attitudes and approaches of specific population groups with perspectives on a range of experiences and issues—from social networking to media consumption, political views to social identity, and more.

Use SurveyMonkey Audience to help reach your target audiences for research and build relevant, real-world data into your research proposals or business plans. SurveyMonkey offers a ready-to-use template of demographics verified by our staff methodologists, which you can add to any survey to ensure you know who you’re looking at.

Use the sample questions below to inform your own demographic survey and gather meaningful insights about your audience.

Gain insight into how businesses operate and the challenges individuals encounter with specific business surveys. Learn about specific industries by contacting businesses with questions about their location, size, and market.

In many cases, social and economic researchers examine the social impact of various economic changes, particularly how businesses approach social responsibility. This type of research can affect both industry and government decision-making.

Conducting an academic survey is more approachable than it may seem. With the right approach, you can gather meaningful data to strengthen and support your research.

Before creating your academic survey, you must clearly identify what you aim to learn. This clarity will help you formulate survey questions that support your research objectives. Consider who your target population is and what types of data you require (qualitative, quantitative, or both). Your research objectives shape the design, structure, and selected distribution method of the survey.

Next, you will need to choose the type of survey you want to send. There are more survey types than the 10 we shared, but those serve as a good starting point. Selecting an education survey template from SurveyMonkey helps you speed up the process by starting with expert-written survey questions. Our survey templates are completely customizable, allowing you to add or remove survey questions as needed.

Whether you begin with a survey template or create one from scratch, the next step is to formulate your questions. It’s crucial to use clear and straightforward language to ensure that all respondents understand the questions. Keep your research objectives in mind when crafting your questions to align with your survey goals. Don’t forget to include demographic data questions to provide context for your results.

It’s smart to test your survey with a small, representative sample before launching it at scale. This allows you to catch any confusing phrasing, test completion time, and identify drop-off points. Pretesting helps researchers send the most effective surveys possible.

Once you’ve pretested and updated your survey, it’s time to send it to your target audience. You can distribute your survey in various ways, including via email, SMS, on a webpage, or using a QR code. Send your survey to your sample and wait for the results to roll in. 

Analyze the data received from respondents to identify patterns and trends, and uncover valuable insights. SurveyMonkey makes it easy to unlock data with benchmarking features and more. Thoroughly analyze survey respondent data to create a report that displays your research findings.

Academic surveys are crucial tools in education, supporting students, educators, and researchers in their research efforts. These surveys can be used in a myriad of ways, such as pretesting research ideas or validating research methods.

SurveyMonkey education survey templates make gathering data simple. Effectively collect insights for more informed decision-making with SurveyMonkey for Education. Sign up today to get started.