What are students actually saying about Contact time (NSS 2018–2025)?
Students are consistently dissatisfied with contact hours. Comments focus on the amount, reliability and accessibility of taught time, with a markedly negative tone across most subject areas and student groups. Fastest wins: make the timetable a promise (delivered vs planned), reduce short-notice changes, and build in accessible alternatives where live contact cannot be guaranteed.
Scope: UK NSS open-text comments tagged to Contact time across academic years 2018–2025.
Volume: 2,260 comments (≈0.6% of 385,317 analysed); 100% with sentiment.
Overall mood: 21.7% Positive, 72.2% Negative, 6.1% Neutral (positive:negative ≈ 0.30:1). Sentiment index: −26.8.
What students are saying in this category
- Tone is strongly negative across the board. Full-time and part-time students are similarly critical (indices −27.0 and −26.7). Younger and mature students are near-identical (−27.0 and −26.2).
- Disabled students report a more negative experience (−31.0) than those not disabled (−26.1), suggesting barriers in how contact is scheduled or delivered.
- By subject area (CAH1), large-volume clusters are clearly negative: social sciences (−35.6), historical/philosophical/religious studies (−33.0), languages (−31.3), psychology (−30.9). Some areas are less negative: allied to medicine (−14.5), engineering (−14.3), arts (−18.1). Positive outliers exist but are small in volume (e.g., medicine & dentistry +30.1; architecture +19.2).
- Ethnic group differences are mixed: White students align with the overall tone (−27.5); Asian students are somewhat less negative (−21.6). Black students are closer to neutral (−4.2) but numbers are small (n=34).
Segment benchmarks (2018–2025)
Top CAH subjects by volume
| CAH subject (top by volume) |
Comments |
Share % |
Sentiment idx |
Positive % |
Negative % |
| (CAH15) social sciences |
323 |
14.3 |
-35.6 |
15.5 |
78.6 |
| (CAH20) historical, philosophical and religious studies |
283 |
12.5 |
-33.0 |
19.4 |
78.1 |
| (CAH19) language and area studies |
198 |
8.8 |
-31.3 |
17.7 |
74.2 |
| (CAH17) business and management |
114 |
5.0 |
-27.6 |
21.1 |
70.2 |
| (CAH25) design, and creative and performing arts |
109 |
4.8 |
-18.1 |
30.3 |
64.2 |
| (CAH04) psychology |
102 |
4.5 |
-30.9 |
17.6 |
71.6 |
| (CAH16) law |
92 |
4.1 |
-26.9 |
18.5 |
78.3 |
| (CAH26) geography, earth and environmental studies |
91 |
4.0 |
-28.5 |
18.7 |
74.7 |
| (CAH02) subjects allied to medicine |
71 |
3.1 |
-14.5 |
28.2 |
64.8 |
| (CAH03) biological and sport sciences |
61 |
2.7 |
-17.9 |
27.9 |
68.9 |
Demographic and study-mode view
| Segment |
Group |
Comments |
Sentiment idx |
Positive % |
Negative % |
| Age |
Young |
2,044 |
-27.0 |
21.5 |
72.3 |
| Age |
Mature |
187 |
-26.2 |
22.5 |
73.3 |
| Disability |
Not disabled |
1,834 |
-26.1 |
22.5 |
71.6 |
| Disability |
Disabled |
397 |
-31.0 |
17.4 |
75.6 |
| Mode |
Full-time |
2,094 |
-27.0 |
21.5 |
72.3 |
| Mode |
Part-time |
131 |
-26.7 |
22.9 |
74.8 |
| Sex |
Female |
1,477 |
-27.6 |
20.6 |
73.5 |
| Sex |
Male |
749 |
-25.8 |
23.5 |
70.1 |
| Ethnicity |
White |
1,705 |
-27.5 |
21.0 |
73.0 |
| Ethnicity |
Asian |
139 |
-21.6 |
27.3 |
68.3 |
| Ethnicity |
Black |
34 |
-4.2 |
41.2 |
52.9 |
What this means in practice
- Protect the timetable
- Publish planned contact hours per module and track delivered vs planned weekly.
- Introduce a “no-surprises window” (e.g., no changes inside 72 hours) and a simple change log.
- If a session is cancelled, auto-schedule the replacement within a defined SLA.
- Make access predictable
- Standardise staff office hours and make them visible in calendars.
- Offer accessible alternatives for unavoidable clashes (recordings, repeat labs/seminars within a week).
- Prioritise adjustments where the disabled student gap is evident (−31.0 vs −26.1).
- Monitor and close the loop
- Add a lightweight pulse after weeks with changes (two-question micro‑survey).
- Track the top three failure modes (e.g., late changes, rooming issues, staff availability) and publish fixes.
How Student Voice Analytics helps you
- See category-level sentiment over time and drill down by CAH subject, demographics, mode, campus/site or cohort.
- Like-for-like peer comparisons by subject (CAH codes) and student characteristics to target where the gap is widest.
- Export concise, anonymised summaries for programme and timetable teams to action quickly.
Data at a glance (2018–2025)
- Volume: 2,260 comments on Contact time (≈0.6% of 385,317 total).
- Sentiment coverage: 100% of comments scored.
- Overall tone: 21.7% Positive, 72.2% Negative, 6.1% Neutral; index −26.8.