Student Voice Analytics for Naval Architecture — UK student feedback 2018–2025

Scope. UK NSS open-text comments for Naval Architecture (CAH10-01-05) students across academic years 2018–2025.
Volume. ~3,373 comments; 96.9% successfully categorised to a single primary topic.
Overall mood. Roughly 53.3% Positive, 43.0% Negative, 3.7% Neutral (positive:negative ≈ 1.24:1).

What students are saying

Naval Architecture students talk most about the people and structures around their course. Comments about Teaching Staff are the single largest topic (~8.0% share) and strongly positive (index ~+36.4), with Delivery of teaching also net positive. Students likewise value the Type and breadth of course content (~6.9%, index ~+27.6).

Two themes stand out by volume versus the sector: General facilities accounts for an unusually high share (~6.6% vs 1.8% sector). Sentiment is positive overall here (index ~+20.9) but a little below sector on tone. By contrast, Workload is more prominent than in the sector (~5.2% vs 1.8%) and strongly negative (index ~−47.8). Organisation, management of course (~5.6%, index ~−21.6), Scheduling (~2.5%, index ~−36.6) and Communication about course and teaching (~2.2%, index ~−36.0) round out the operational pain points.

In Assessment & Feedback, Feedback is a major part of the conversation (~7.7%) and, while slightly negative overall (index ~−5.0), it is notably less negative than the sector on this topic. The sharper issue is clarity: Marking criteria carries a smaller share (~2.6%) but is very negative (index ~−47.5). Students respond better where expectations are explicit and consistently applied.

The learning community shows sustained positives. Personal development is strikingly strong (index ~+64.8), Student life is upbeat (index ~+44.6), and opportunities to work with other students trend positive (index ~+19.3, well above sector tone). Personal Tutor appears less often than sector average and is only mildly positive in tone.

Placements/fieldwork are a relatively small part of the discussion here (~1.9% vs 3.4% sector) and trend positive (index ~+17.7). Comments about Costs / Value for money are relatively frequent (~3.1%) and strongly negative (index ~−50.8), in line with the wider sector pattern even if slightly less negative than the sector average.

Top categories by share (Naval Architecture vs sector):

Category	Section	Share %	Sector %	Δ pp	Sentiment idx	Δ vs sector
Teaching Staff	The teaching on my course	8.0	6.7	+1.3	+36.4	+0.9
Feedback	Assessment and feedback	7.7	7.3	+0.4	−5.0	+10.0
Type and breadth of course content	Learning opportunities	6.9	6.9	+0.0	+27.6	+5.0
General facilities	Learning resources	6.6	1.8	+4.9	+20.9	−2.5
Student support	Academic support	6.2	6.2	+0.0	+10.0	−3.2
Organisation, management of course	Organisation and management	5.6	3.3	+2.3	−21.6	−7.7
Workload	Organisation and management	5.2	1.8	+3.3	−47.8	−7.8
Delivery of teaching	The teaching on my course	4.2	5.4	−1.3	+10.1	+1.3
Personal development	Learning community	4.1	2.5	+1.6	+64.8	+4.9
Student life	Learning community	3.6	3.2	+0.4	+44.6	+12.5

Most negative categories (share ≥ 2%)

Category	Section	Share %	Sector %	Δ pp	Sentiment idx	Δ vs sector
Costs / Value for money	Others	3.1	1.6	+1.5	−50.8	+1.9
Workload	Organisation and management	5.2	1.8	+3.3	−47.8	−7.8
Marking criteria	Assessment and feedback	2.6	3.5	−0.9	−47.5	−1.8
Scheduling/ timetabling	Organisation and management	2.5	2.9	−0.4	−36.6	−20.1
Communication about course and teaching	Organisation and management	2.2	1.7	+0.5	−36.0	−0.2
COVID-19	Others	3.1	3.3	−0.3	−24.3	+8.6
Organisation, management of course	Organisation and management	5.6	3.3	+2.3	−21.6	−7.7

Shares are the proportion of all Naval Architecture 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%)

Category	Section	Share %	Sector %	Δ pp	Sentiment idx	Δ vs sector
Personal development	Learning community	4.1	2.5	+1.6	+64.8	+4.9
Student life	Learning community	3.6	3.2	+0.4	+44.6	+12.5
Teaching Staff	The teaching on my course	8.0	6.7	+1.3	+36.4	+0.9
Type and breadth of course content	Learning opportunities	6.9	6.9	+0.0	+27.6	+5.0
General facilities	Learning resources	6.6	1.8	+4.9	+20.9	−2.5
Learning resources	Learning resources	2.1	3.8	−1.7	+20.1	−1.3
Opportunities to work with others	Learning community	2.9	2.0	+1.0	+19.3	+18.2

What this means in practice

Smooth the operational rhythm. The most consistent friction points are Workload, Organisation and management, Scheduling and Course communications. Publish a term-level assessment map with estimated effort, even out peak loads, set and honour a timetable change window, and maintain a single source of truth for course updates.
Make assessment expectations crystal clear. Feedback is a big topic and comparatively less negative than sector, but Marking criteria remains a weak spot. Use annotated exemplars, checklist-style rubrics, and an agreed feedback turnaround time to reduce ambiguity and improve perceived usefulness.
Protect and amplify people-centred strengths. Teaching Staff sentiment is a clear asset; keep staff visible and accessible, and embed short, practical “how to improve” pointers into routine teaching. Sustain the positive momentum in Personal development and Student life by facilitating collaborative work and peer networks.
Keep facilities visible and predictable. Facilities attract unusually high attention here. Make service levels, booking processes and maintenance schedules transparent, and provide quick status updates when things change.

Data at a glance (2018–2025)

Largest topics by share: Teaching Staff (~8.0%), Feedback (~7.7%), Type and breadth of course content (~6.9%), General facilities (~6.6%), Student support (~6.2%).
Delivery & ops cluster (Organisation & management, Scheduling, Comms about the course, Remote learning, Placements, Workload) accounts for ~19.1% of all comments and leans negative, particularly Workload (index ~−47.8) and Scheduling (index ~−36.6).
People & growth cluster (Teaching Staff, Delivery of teaching, Student support, Personal Tutor, Personal development, Student life, Availability of teaching staff) accounts for ~29.6% of comments with strong positive tone (e.g., Personal development ~+64.8; Student life ~+44.6).
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 to +100, 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, sentiment and movement by year across the whole institution and down to fine‑grained department and school views, so teams can focus on high‑impact areas like Workload, Organisation, Communications and Feedback.

It also 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 relative to the right peer group. Concise, anonymised theme summaries and representative comments make it easy to brief programme teams and external stakeholders without trawling thousands of responses. Flexible segmentation (by site/provider, cohort, year) and export‑ready outputs (web, deck, dashboard) make sharing priorities and progress straightforward.