Describe your topics, audience, and research goal. Makeform drafts a balanced survey covering awareness, concern, experience, behavior, priorities, and optional demographics.
Send survey responses to Google Sheets, Slack, and Zapier.
Sample prompts for the survey builder
Choose a scenario, adapt its prompt, and review the generated survey before fielding it.
Audience
Adults in a school or local community
Format
Ten-minute awareness and opinion survey
Prompt size
334 chars
Example survey structure
Ten-minute awareness and opinion survey
Which environmental problems come to mind locally?
How concerned are you about each issue?
Which issue should be addressed first?
How often do you take these actions?
Optional background questions
Suggested analysis tags
High awareness
Priority concerns
Action barriers
Ask about awareness before showing explanations. Otherwise the survey itself can teach respondents the answer and distort your baseline.
Step 1
Define
population, geography, topics, and decisions
Step 2
Draft
neutral questions on awareness and opinion
Step 3
Field
share one mobile-friendly survey link
Step 4
Analyze
compare priorities, experiences, and groups
Better environmental research
Measure distinct signals instead of asking only whether people care, so responses remain interpretable.
Capture unprompted awareness before showing a defined issue list, so the survey does not inflate the baseline.
Use one balanced scale across issues and include Not sure instead of forcing an opinion.
Show detailed follow-ups only for conditions someone reports, keeping each path relevant.
Four research settings
Choose a defined audience, place, timeframe, and decision before adapting a scenario.
Use a clear research question, consistent scales, and optional demographics for class analysis.
Document lived conditions, priority services, participation interest, and separate follow-up permission.
Compare program awareness, perceived effectiveness, and barriers across campus roles.
Measure familiarity first, then balanced support, opposition, uncertainty, and reasons.
Survey workflow
Describe the method, generate a focused draft, and pilot it before wider distribution.
State who should answer, the geography, timeframe, and decision the results will inform.
List the issues and distinguish awareness, concern, experience, behavior, and policy support.
Remove loaded terms, balance scale endpoints, add suitable opt-outs, and place demographics last.
Test question interpretations, fix ambiguity, publish, and export structured responses for analysis.
Question design choices
Match each question format to the evidence needed and avoid combining multiple ideas.
Field guide
Keep each measure distinct, offer suitable opt-outs, and remove questions you will not analyze.
Scope and eligibility
State the purpose, expected effort, data use, and whether responses are anonymous or identifiable. Screen only for relevant eligibility.
Awareness and information
Ask which issues come to mind before showing a fixed list. This separates unaided recall from recognition.
Concern and priority
Concern, urgency, and policy support are different. Give each a balanced, clearly labeled scale.
Experience and behavior
Ask about specific events and actions within a timeframe, then route details from reported experiences.
Solutions and tradeoffs
Present proposals in parallel language, then ask support, reasons, priorities, and tradeoffs.
Background and follow-up
Place demographics last, explain their purpose, and separate contact details when anonymity is promised.
Related tools
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Open toolSurvey awareness, ethics, alternatives, and policy preferences.
Open toolFAQ
Answers for students, NGOs, and researchers designing a balanced questionnaire.
It measures what a defined group knows, experiences, prioritizes, or supports about topics such as air, water, waste, climate, biodiversity, energy, and land use. Specify the population and timeframe, and measure awareness, concern, behavior, and support separately.
Include eligibility, unaided awareness, issue recognition, concern, time-bounded experiences, behavior frequency, information sources, and priorities or support. Add one open response and only demographics you plan to compare.
Use neutral wording, present support and opposition symmetrically, ask one idea at a time, and include Not sure when knowledge may be limited. Pilot questions by asking testers what each meant.
Choose based on the goal and describe the approach accurately. If responses can link to a person, do not call them anonymous. Collect contact permission separately for interviews, help, or volunteering.
Keep every question tied to the research decision. Branch details from relevant experiences or roles, test the survey on a phone, and remove repeated measures you will not analyze.
Yes. Define groups before fielding, collect broad categories consistently, use the same scales, and offer suitable opt-outs. Avoid exact addresses or detailed identity data when broader categories answer the question.
Yes. Makeform provides unlimited free forms and responses. You can generate, edit, publish, and collect responses without a usage cap; the paid tier removes the Makeform badge.
Review submissions in Makeform or send them to a spreadsheet or analysis workflow. Choose short variable labels, keep scale direction consistent, and plan how to code open responses before fielding.
Turn a broad environmental topic into measurable questions.
