Student Voice Analytics for Environmental Sciences — UK student feedback 2018–2025

Scope. UK NSS open-text comments for Environmental Sciences (CAH26-01-04) students across academic years 2018–2025.
Volume. ~1,725 comments; 96.6% successfully categorised to a single primary topic.
Overall mood. Roughly 52.9% Positive, 43.9% Negative, 3.2% Neutral (positive:negative ≈ 1.20:1).

What students are saying

Environmental Sciences students talk first about the shape of the curriculum. The largest theme is the Type and breadth of course content (≈8.6% share), which is clearly positive (sentiment index +25.2) and sits slightly above sector tone for the same topic. Field-based learning and placements feature prominently too (≈7.1% share) and are also upbeat compared with sector (index +22.9, +11.1 vs sector), pointing to applied experiences as a defining strength.

Resources are a recurring topic. General Learning resources attract more discussion than sector (+3.1 pp by share) but the tone is only moderately positive and below sector (+13.1; −8.3 vs sector). Within this, IT Facilities draw a negative slant (−14.0), suggesting reliability or access issues are pulling the overall resources picture down.

Operational delivery is mixed but, notably, Scheduling/timetabling is a relative bright spot here: it’s more present than sector (+1.9 pp) and positive against a sector baseline that trends negative (index +7.9, +24.4 vs sector). Remote learning leans mildly negative (−7.4) and Organisation and management is slightly negative (−4.9), while Communications about course and teaching (1.0% share) is small but clearly negative (−44.6).

People-centred themes are consistently positive. Teaching Staff (index +34.2) is a standout strength; Delivery of teaching (+7.7), Student support (+7.3) and Personal Tutor (+14.0) are positive too, albeit a little below sector on tone. Students also report strong Personal development (+51.3), though it appears in a smaller share of comments (≈2.2%).

Assessment and feedback draws attention and tilts negative. As in many disciplines, Marking criteria (−44.0) and Assessment methods (−19.2) are pain points; Feedback is mixed (−9.6, but less negative than sector), and Dissertation sentiment is very negative at low volume (−45.9, 1.2% share). Workload is among the most negative topics (−49.2), and Opportunities to work with other students also trend negative (−14.5), signalling a need to support group work design and expectations.

Top categories by share (Environmental Sciences vs sector)

Most negative categories (share ≥ 2%)

Shares are the proportion of all Environmental Sciences comments whose primary topic is the category. Sentiment index ranges from −100 (more negative than positive) to +100 (more positive than negative).

Most positive categories (share ≥ 2%)

What this means in practice

• Protect and scale applied learning. Fieldwork and placements are distinct positives against sector. Keep them reliable: confirm capacity early, publish travel and kit expectations upfront, and provide a clear “what changed and why” update channel during busy field periods. Where possible, standardise pre‑trip briefings and make short, structured on‑site feedback part of the routine.

• Make assessment expectations unambiguous. The most negative items sit in Assessment and feedback (Marking criteria, Assessment methods, Feedback). Publish annotated exemplars, use checklist‑style rubrics, calibrate marking across teams, and set a realistic, visible feedback SLA. Address workload peaks by mapping assessment timelines across modules and smoothing clashes.

• Strengthen collaboration design and core infrastructure. Group work needs more scaffolding: set roles, shared milestones, and fair contribution tracking; give staff a simple escalation path for team issues. Resource tone is mixed: prioritise reliability on IT facilities and ensure students can access required software and specialist tools on and off campus.

Data at a glance (2018–2025)

• Top topics by share: Type and breadth of course content (≈8.6%), Placements/fieldwork/trips (≈7.1%), Learning resources (≈6.9%), Feedback (≈5.7%), Remote learning (≈5.4%).
• Delivery & ops cluster (placements, scheduling, organisation, comms, remote) accounts for ~20.8% of all comments and shows a mixed tone: scheduling is a relative strength, while remote learning and comms are weaker.
• People & growth cluster (personal tutor, student support, teaching staff, delivery of teaching, personal development, student life) accounts for ~23.1% with consistently positive tone.
• Assessment & feedback (feedback, marking criteria, assessment methods, dissertation) comprises ~12.7% of comments and is the most negative area overall.

How to read the numbers. Each comment is assigned one primary topic; share is that topic’s proportion of all comments. Sentiment is calculated per sentence and summarised as an index from −100 (more negative than positive) to +100 (more positive than negative), then averaged at category level.

How Student Voice Analytics helps you

Student Voice Analytics turns open-text survey comments into clear priorities you can act on. It tracks topics and sentiment over time (year-on-year), so programme teams can see what changed, where, and by how much—at whole‑institution level and down to schools and departments.

It also lets you prove change on a like‑for‑like basis: you can run sector comparisons across CAH codes and by demographics (e.g., year of study, domicile, mode of study, campus/site, commuter status). Segment by site/provider, cohort and year to target the parts of the student journey where interventions will move sentiment most. Concise, anonymised summaries with representative comments make it easy to brief partners and programme committees without trawling thousands of responses, and export‑ready outputs (for web, decks, dashboards) help you share priorities and progress across the institution.