What are students actually saying about Dissertation (NSS 2018–2025)?

Student views on the dissertation are net negative overall: 59.3% of sentiment-tagged sentences are negative vs 37.8% positive (sentiment index −6.4). Tone is notably harsher among mature and part‑time cohorts, and more negative for disabled students. Subject patterns vary: design/creative, geography/environmental and historical/philosophical clusters are most negative; engineering, biological sciences and psychology sit closer to neutral.

Scope: UK NSS open-text comments for Dissertation under Assessment and feedback across academic years 2018–2025.
Volume: 4,256 comments in this category; 100.0% sentiment-scored.
Overall mood: 37.8% Positive, 59.3% Negative, 3.0% Neutral (index −6.4; positive:negative ≈ 0.64:1).

What are students saying in this category?

The balance of opinion is negative across the board, with only small subgroups showing near-neutral or positive tone.
Cohort effects are material: mature (−21.0) and part‑time (−21.0) students are substantially more negative than young (−5.4) and full‑time (−6.1) peers; apprentices are very negative (−34.4) but few in number (n=12).
Disabled students (−10.0) are more negative than those not disabled (−5.9).
By sex, females (−8.4) are more negative than males (−2.8).
Subject patterns differ: design/creative (−14.3), geography/environmental (−12.3) and historical/philosophical (−11.2) are the lowest‑tone clusters among those with meaningful volume; engineering (−1.9), biological sciences (−2.8) and psychology (−3.7) are closer to neutral. Small physical sciences and mathematics cohorts skew positive but are low N.

Subgroup snapshot (share within Dissertation)

Dimension	Group	Share %	n	Sentiment idx	Positive %	Negative %
Age	Young	90.0	3,830	−5.4	38.7	58.4
Age	Mature	7.9	335	−21.0	24.8	70.7
Mode	Full-time	94.6	4,026	−6.1	38.0	59.0
Mode	Part-time	2.9	122	−21.0	25.4	71.3
Disability	Not disabled	79.7	3,394	−5.9	38.1	58.8
Disability	Disabled	18.2	773	−10.0	35.2	62.4
Sex	Female	66.9	2,846	−8.4	36.4	60.7
Sex	Male	30.9	1,314	−2.8	40.0	56.7

Subject clusters with lowest tone (≥100 comments)

CAH subject cluster	n	Sentiment idx	Positive %	Negative %
Design, creative and performing arts	115	−14.3	34.8	60.0
Geography, earth and environmental studies	286	−12.3	36.7	61.9
Historical, philosophical and religious studies	269	−11.2	32.3	62.1
Language and area studies	133	−10.8	36.1	62.4
Law	104	−7.9	33.7	63.5
Subjects allied to medicine	399	−7.6	35.3	61.4

Notes: Several smaller cohorts show stronger positive or negative indices; interpret with caution where n is low.

What this means in practice

Make the core experience accessible for time‑poor cohorts
- Provide concise, asynchronous guidance (milestone checklists, short exemplars) so mature, part‑time and disabled students can self‑serve outside standard hours.
- Offer predictable supervision windows across the week (including some evening slots) and publish a simple response‑time expectation.
Standardise expectations across subjects
- Use a common milestone framework (proposal, ethics/approvals, analysis plan, draft, final) with consistent definitions of “what good looks like.”
- Share a small bank of annotated exemplars to reduce variability between subject clusters with lower tone.
Proactive check‑ins where tone is weakest
- Early, opt‑out progress check for mature/part‑time and disabled students.
- Run short, targeted clinics in the most negative subject clusters; monitor whether sentiment improves after each cycle.
Track experience like an operational service
- Maintain a simple dashboard: supervision availability, missed appointments, response‑time compliance, and student‑reported blockers.
- Review these alongside sentiment by cohort and subject to prioritise fixes.

How Student Voice Analytics helps you

Turns all open-text into topic and sentiment time series, with drill‑downs by cohort (age, mode, disability, sex) and subject cluster (CAH).
Like‑for‑like comparisons across schools/departments and demographics to spot where support needs to be differentiated.
Exportable, anonymised summaries for programme and assessment leads, and year‑on‑year movement to evidence change.

Data at a glance (2018–2025)

Volume: 4,256 comments in Dissertation; 100% sentiment‑scored.
Overall mood: 37.8% Positive, 59.3% Negative, 3.0% Neutral (index −6.4).
Cohort hotspots: Mature (−21.0), Part‑time (−21.0), Disabled (−10.0); Apprentices very negative (−34.4, n=12).
Subject variation: Lowest tone in Design (−14.3), Geography/Environmental (−12.3), Historical/Philosophical (−11.2); near‑neutral in Engineering (−1.9), Biological (−2.8), Psychology (−3.7).