Creating your own survey takes a lot of time and requires technical expertise. Unless you have someone who can help tailor a survey to your specific needs, you might want to consider an existing one. There are many prepackaged surveys or sample surveys available to schools. The Resources section suggests both print and electronic surveys, and sample surveys are featured in the tools included with the print version of the Annenberg Institute's publication Tools for Accountability: Surveys.

There are several advantages to using existing surveys. They have been pretested, and many of the problems have been worked out. Developers usually provide information about the validity and reliability of the instruments. Finally, survey items or whole surveys that have been used on a large sample population over time offer the possibility of comparing your school's or districts's responses to a larger population.