instructor surrounded by students

Developing a Pre-Course Survey

A guide on questions to ask students prior to the first day of class

At a Glance

Some key takeaways on developing pre-course surveys:

  • Pre-course surveys are a series of questions that help instructors learn about their students’ interests and experiences before the first day of class.
  • Pre-course surveys can include open-ended questions that allow instructors to get to know students’ interests inside and outside of the classroom.
  • They can improve students’ academic performance by strengthening their sense of belonging in the classroom.

What Is a Pre-Course Survey?

Benefits

Examples

References

What is a Pre-Course Survey?

A pre-course survey is a series of questions that will help instructors get to know their students and their expectations, interests, and preparations before the first day. Open-ended questions often elicit valuable information about student identity as it relates to the course and allow students to choose if, and how much, to share.  Whereas instructors will likely use anonymous methods to gather feedback about the student learning experience once the class has begun through a mid-semester feedback survey, for example, instructors will likely prefer students to share their names and experiences on a pre-course survey so that they have the opportunity to get to know individual students and how to support them as members of the classroom community.

Benefits

Numerous studies have underscored the importance of deepening students’ sense of belonging to facilitate their learning. Pre-course surveys are one such valuable belonging intervention. Student belonging is correlated with “better persistence, engagement, and mental health” at the collegiate level (Gopalan and Brady, 2020). At four-year colleges, racial minorities and first generation students on average report lower levels of belonging than their counterparts, but belonging interventions can reduce this disparity and improve students’ academic performance (Murphy et al., 2020; Walton and Cohen, 2011).

Examples

Questions to get to know students as humans

  • What do you prefer to be called?
  • How do you pronounce your name? Could you share a phonetic spelling of your name?
  • What are your pronouns, if you feel comfortable sharing?
  • What do you like to do when you are not focused on school (e.g. personal hobbies, extracurriculars at Yale, etc.)?
  • Is there anything else you would like to share about yourself?

Questions to get to know students as learners

  • What is your reason for taking this course?
  • What interaction, if any, have you had with this subject matter?
  • What are you most excited about in this course? What are you most worried about?
  • What is the most important thing you hope to learn from this course?
  • How do you feel you learn best? How do you know?
  • What should I know about you that would help me help you learn better?
  • In a few sentences, what is one of the most memorable/exciting/interesting things you learned last semester?
  • Do you have concerns about being able to participate fully during our class time? 
  • What are three of the factors you imagine will be most impactful on your ability to participate fully in the course this semester?

Questions about Group Work

  • How often have you worked on group projects in previous college courses? (with options like very frequently, occasionally, rarely)
  • Overall, how would you describe your past experiences with group work? (with options like positive, mixed, negative)
  • Do you prefer to choose your own group members or be assigned randomly? 
  • If you could select your group members, what factors would be most important to you? (open-ended)
  • How comfortable are you with contributing equally to a group project? (with options like very comfortable, somewhat comfortable, not comfortable) 
  • What strategies do you typically use to ensure everyone in your group is actively participating? (open-ended) 

References & Resources

Gopalan, M., & Brady, S. T. (2020). College Students’ Sense of Belonging: A National Perspective. Educational Researcher, 49(2), 134–137. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X19897622

Murphy, M.C., Gopalan, M., Carter, E. R., Emerson, K. T. U., Bottoms, B. L., and Walton, G.M., (2020). A customized belonging intervention improves retention of socially disadvantaged students at a broad-access university Science Advances, 6(29). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aba4677

Walton, G.M., & Cohen, G.L. (2011). A Brief Social-Belonging Intervention Improves Academic and Health Outcomes of Minority Students. Science, 331(6023), 1447-1451. DOI: 10.1126/science.1198364

  1. Princeton University’s McGraw Center for Teaching and Learning has a guide on creating pre-course surveys.
  2. Northwestern University has a resource on writing pre-course surveys.
  3. The MIT Teaching + Learning Lab has an article on why students’ sense of belonging matters.