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.