Edinburgh students link housing insecurity to disrupted study

Updated Sep 09, 2026

A missed deadline is a reason to ask about study conditions. Where was the student trying to work, and what was getting in the way? Hannah Awcock’s paper in Student Engagement in Higher Education Journal offers a starting point for that conversation. For university feedback teams, we suggest asking whether housing concerns receive attention when they appear within comments about learning or support.

Context and research question

Published on 6 November 2025, the study examines housing insecurity through 24 semi-structured student interviews at the University of Edinburgh, concerning 2022/23. Awcock used inductive thematic analysis. This briefing draws on the full published paper.

For UK Student Experience teams, the practical question is how to organise a review that connects accommodation concerns with the decisions teaching and support teams can make. Start with a defined question and an agreed route for discussing the evidence with students.

Key findings

Temporary arrangements concealed substantial disruption. Students described sofa-surfing, short stays and distant commutes. Housing searches and inadequate study space interrupted academic work (pp. 219–225).

Finding accommodation did not always end distress. Some participants remained unsettled or worried about another housing search after securing somewhere to live (pp. 222–223).

Responses from staff mattered to participants. Accounts connected perceived institutional indifference with disconnection; one student contrasted an unsympathetic response with an understanding personal tutor (pp. 227–228).

Practical implications for feedback teams

The following are our proposed review steps, not an intervention evaluated in the paper. Begin with one collection of feedback that your team is authorised to analyse. Examine whether your coding distinguishes housing availability, affordability, conditions and the response to requests for help. Let comments receive more than one relevant category, and inspect ambiguous cases. The aim is to give accommodation and academic teams a shared starting point for discussion.

Keep the circumstances students describe attached to the interpretation. If a comment mentions travel, for example, ask whether the student explains why they are travelling and what they cannot access. Do not automatically infer housing insecurity from commuting. Our separate briefing on journey time and commuter student feedback offers another perspective for planning those questions. This keeps a broad label from becoming an unsupported explanation.

Ask student representatives and accommodation colleagues to review anonymised themes before deciding what to investigate. Invite disagreement: does a category capture the concern, or obscure it? For a complementary reading, see the briefing on OfS accommodation research. Record which service owns each proposed action and how students will hear the response, so the discussion produces a reviewable next step.

Decide how to handle sensitive detail before circulating examples. Use the student comment analysis governance checklist to agree access, redaction and reporting rules. Keep a clearly signposted route for requesting individual help alongside any survey, explaining whether responses are monitored and when. This gives students a clearer expectation of what submitting a comment can achieve.

FAQ

Q: How can we apply this to our next survey review?

A: Select a bounded sample for an initial coding review with accommodation and Student Experience colleagues. Document category definitions, check examples together and record unresolved interpretations. Before extending the approach, decide what question the analysis will answer and which team can act on it. Assess the usefulness of the resulting decisions locally.

Q: What can this study tell us about prevalence or causes?

A: Voluntary interviews at one university cannot establish national prevalence or isolate causal effects. The paper’s undergraduate and postgraduate counts do not sum to its stated total; we omit that breakdown. Use the accounts to frame questions, not calculate a sector benchmark.

Q: What is the broader implication for student voice?

A: We suggest treating comment categories as aids to enquiry. Ask what evidence sits behind a theme, whose circumstances may be missing and what needs clarification with students. Do not equate few housing comments with few housing problems, or label individuals from an automated category. Report the limits alongside the findings so decision-makers can judge what further evidence they need.

References

[Paper Source]: Hannah Awcock "Edinburgh’s Student Housing Crisis: The Impact of Insecure Housing on Student Wellbeing and Engagement" DOI: 10.66561/sehej.v7i2.1256