Student Voice Analytics for Mental Health Nursing — UK student feedback 2018–2025

Scope. UK NSS open-text comments for Mental Health Nursing (CAH02-04-07) students across academic years 2018–2025.
Volume. ~2,170 comments; 97.7% successfully categorised to a single primary topic.
Overall mood. Roughly 51.8% Positive, 45.4% Negative, 2.8% Neutral (positive:negative ≈ 1.14:1).

What students are saying

Mental Health Nursing students’ experience is shaped most of all by placements. Around one in five comments focus on placements, fieldwork or trips (≈21.5% share). The tone is net negative (index −10.5) and notably below a sector baseline that is positive for this topic (−22.3 vs sector). The themes students react to will be familiar: logistics and rota changes, travel time and cost, and the availability of on‑site support and feedback.

A second, sizeable part of the narrative concerns the delivery mechanics of the programme. Scheduling/timetabling (3.6% share, −29.3), organisation and management (4.5%, −36.9), and communication about course and teaching (3.3%, −49.9) all lean strongly negative versus sector. Remote learning also trends slightly negative (3.9%, −7.3). Together with placements, this operational cluster explains a large share of the negative sentiment: students want predictability, a single source of truth, and clear ownership of decisions.

Set against this, there are consistent strengths. People‑centred support is a clear positive: Personal Tutor references are very positive (5.0% share; index +50.2, well above sector), as are Teaching Staff (+40.0) and Student support (+21.3). Students also point to tangible gains in Personal development (+67.4), recognise a positive Student life (+40.1), and speak well of the Library (+55.7). Delivery of teaching (+18.7) benefits where structure and expectations are visible.

Assessment & Feedback remains mixed. Feedback appears in 3.6% of comments and carries a negative tone (−17.5), while Marking criteria, though smaller by volume (2.5%), is highly negative (−50.2). The pattern mirrors the wider sector: clarity, exemplars and predictable turnaround times are the levers that most quickly lift sentiment.

Finally, some topics are under‑discussed compared with the sector: Type and breadth of course content (3.8% vs 6.9%), Module choice/variety (0.8% vs 4.2%), and broader Learning resources (1.1% vs 3.8%). Day‑to‑day operational realities and placements appear to dominate the conversation more than optionality or generic facilities.

Top categories by share (Mental Health Nursing vs sector):

Most negative categories (share ≥ 2%)

Shares are the proportion of all 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

• Treat placements as a designed service. Confirm capacity before publishing rotas; set and honour a clear change window; and build in short, structured on‑site feedback moments. These basics lift placement sentiment and reduce pressure on surrounding delivery categories (scheduling, organisation, communications).

• Restore rhythm and clarity to course operations. Nominate visible owners for timetabling and programme communications; keep a single source of truth; publish a brief weekly “what changed and why” update. Transparency turns surprises into manageable adjustments.

• Make assessment clarity non‑negotiable. Share annotated exemplars, checklist‑style rubrics and realistic feedback SLAs. This directly addresses the strongly negative tone on Marking criteria and Feedback.

• Amplify what’s working. Personal Tutors, Teaching Staff, the Library and the development students report are clear positives; use these as anchors for improvement communications and peer‑to‑peer practice sharing.

Data at a glance (2018–2025)

• Top topics by share: Placements (≈21.5%), Student support (≈8.5%), Teaching Staff (≈5.8%), Personal Tutor (≈5.0%), COVID‑19 (≈4.8%).
• Delivery & ops cluster (placements, scheduling, organisation, course communications, remote learning): ≈36.8% of all comments, with sentiment generally below sector (e.g., placements −10.5 vs sector +11.8; comms about course −49.9; organisation −36.9; scheduling −29.3).
• People & growth cluster (personal tutor, student support, teaching staff, availability, delivery of teaching, personal development, student life): ≈30.5% of comments, with strong positive tone (e.g., personal development +67.4; personal tutor +50.2; teaching staff +40.0).

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

How Student Voice Analytics helps you

Student Voice Analytics turns open‑text survey comments into clear, prioritised actions. It tracks topics, sentiment and movement by year for all disciplines, including Mental Health Nursing, so you can focus on high‑impact categories like Placements, Timetabling, Organisation, Communications and Feedback.

It supports analysis at whole‑institution level and for fine‑grained units (faculty, school, programme), and produces concise, anonymised theme summaries and representative comments for partners and programme teams. Crucially, it enables like‑for‑like sector comparisons across CAH codes and by demographics (e.g., year of study, domicile, mode of study, campus/site, commuter status), so you can evidence change against the right peer group. You can also segment by site/provider, placement partner, cohort and year to target interventions, and export/share results easily in web, slide or dashboard formats.