Did COVID-19 undermine UK biology students’ learning and wellbeing?
Published Feb 09, 2024 · Updated Mar 07, 2026
COVID-19biologyYes. For many biology students, COVID-19 did more than move teaching online: it disrupted practical learning, heightened anxiety, and made unclear assessment even harder to navigate. In the National Student Survey (NSS) open-text corpus, analysed using our NSS open-text analysis methodology, our COVID-19 topic carries a strongly negative tone (index −24.0 across 12,355 comments). Within biology (non-specific), ≈2,910 comments indicate a more positive baseline overall, but assessment clarity is the pinch-point: Marking criteria is the lowest-rated subtopic (−45.4), while placements and fieldwork remain a strength (+30.6) that students want protected. The message is clear: protect practical learning, make expectations explicit, and keep the best flexible support that emerged during disruption.
How did COVID-19 change teaching for biology students?
Online delivery preserved continuity, but it reduced interaction and cut lab and fieldwork. Reliance on recycled lectures dulled engagement and left students watching biology rather than doing it. The practical lesson is to design disruption plans around live contact, clear communication, and activities that preserve scientific reasoning. Departments now keep disruption-ready playbooks: a single source of truth for changes, a short “what changed and why” digest, and rapid switches to live, small-group teaching where possible, echoing what biology students need from course and teaching communications. Text analysis of student voice helps teams target modules for redesign, so they can prioritise activities that simulate lab decision-making and collaborative inquiry when access to facilities is constrained.
What did the shift online do to mental health, and how should support work?
Isolation and workload shocks increased anxiety. Younger and full-time cohorts typically report the most negative tone, and disabled students are slightly more negative than peers. Effective support therefore starts early: proactive check-ins, explicit disability-related adjustments when arrangements change, and consistent contact from staff who know the module context. When wellbeing support sits inside module spaces, not only within central services, students have a clearer route to help when pressure spikes.
Did fees match the quality of education during COVID-19?
Students questioned value for money when lectures were reused and practical learning was curtailed while fees stayed static. Biology cohorts felt the loss of hands-on teaching acutely because so much of the discipline depends on doing, not just reading. Programmes respond best when they publish what changed and why, restore live teaching wherever viable, and schedule lab-intensive catch-up windows to rebuild practical skills. Remote alternatives can still help, but only when learning outcomes and assessment criteria make equivalence clear.
How were placements and fieldwork disrupted, and what mitigations help?
Lockdowns halted placements and fieldwork, disrupting skill development and graduate readiness. Because fieldwork and placements are a high-impact part of the biology student experience and typically carry positive sentiment (+30.6), protecting them should be a priority, not an afterthought. Programmes do this by front-loading safety training, using virtual pre-labs to prepare students, and arranging micro-placements or project-based field alternatives when travel is restricted. Structured, work-integrated rhythms reduce uncertainty and keep students connected to practice.
Where did universities fall short in their COVID-19 response?
Some providers lacked a coherent, student-centred response, with too little attention to living circumstances, support needs, and the demands of practical disciplines. That gap made adaptation harder and left students carrying the cost of poor coordination. Institutions improve the experience by naming a single owner for timetabling, publishing a stable change log, and codifying continuity practices from disciplines that sustained momentum. Staff can then use student comments to prioritise fixes that reduce friction in access to labs, equipment, and assessment clarity.
How were practical skills and lab work affected?
The sudden loss of hands-on lab time risks lasting skill gaps. Virtual labs support conceptual learning, but they cannot fully replicate tactile experience, peer collaboration, or lab etiquette. Programmes therefore blend virtual preparation with intensive in-person practicals when permitted, extend term-time lab access, and run focused skills bootcamps. Annotated exemplars and checklist-style rubrics also matter, because students need to know precisely how performance is judged when practical exposure is uneven and confidence is fragile, a point developed further in fair and consistent biology assessment design.
Which supports and coping strategies actually helped?
Online study groups, routine-setting, and regular staff check-ins helped students manage isolation. Programme teams that issued timely micro-briefings, kept assessment windows predictable, and made adjustments explicit saw fewer escalations. Staff availability and empathy matter because they reassure cohorts while reinforcing academic standards and giving students practical routes to succeed. The common thread is predictability: when students know what is changing and what support is available, disruption feels more manageable.
What adaptability should we keep?
Retain live, interactive teaching, with short recordings used for revision rather than as substitutes. Keep staff availability visible and feedback turnaround predictable. Above all, tackle assessment clarity head on: students respond when programmes publish annotated exemplars, transparent marking criteria, and realistic service levels for feedback. Protect placements and fieldwork by planning early, communicating contingencies, and using pre-lab preparation to maximise time on task when facilities are available. This combination preserves flexibility without lowering the quality of the biology experience.
How Student Voice Analytics helps you
- Track COVID-19 topic volume and sentiment over time, then drill down to biology cohorts at institution, school, and programme levels.
- Compare like-for-like across CAH groups and demographics, including age, domicile, mode, and commuter status, so you can target support where sentiment lags most.
- Generate concise, anonymised summaries for programme and quality teams, highlighting assessment clarity, timetabling, lab access, and placement disruption.
- Export tables and figures for rapid briefing, and evidence what changed as you implement and evaluate fixes.
If you want to see where disruption still shows up in your biology feedback, explore Student Voice Analytics.
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