What are students actually saying about Strike Action (NSS 2018–2025)?
Strike Action attracts a clear and consistent signal in student comments: it is overwhelmingly negative across subjects and demographics, and it shows up primarily among full-time, younger undergraduates.
Scope: UK NSS open-text comments for Strike Action across academic years 2018–2025.
Volume: ~6,683 comments (≈1.7% of all 385,317 comments); 100.0% sentiment-classified.
Overall mood: 3.4% Positive, 92.3% Negative, 4.3% Neutral; sentiment index −57.1.
What are students saying in this category?
- Tone is uniformly negative across the board. Only 3.4% of comments are positive, and the sentiment index sits at −57.1. This pattern holds across the largest cohorts: full-time (95.3% of comments; index −57.1) and younger students (91.8%; index −57.4).
- By subject (CAH1), the biggest named groups all show similar levels of negativity, typically in the −61 to −52 range. Media/journalism is among the most negative (index −61.6), while business/management (−52.4), biological and sport sciences (−52.8), and psychology (−55.0) are slightly less negative. Very small subjects can deviate (e.g., medicine and dentistry −25.2, n=17).
- Demographic variation is modest: mature students are somewhat less negative than younger students (−53.4 vs −57.4), males slightly less negative than females (−55.6 vs −57.8), and disabled students slightly more negative than those not disabled (−58.0 vs −56.9). All groups remain strongly negative.
Breakdown by subject (CAH1) — largest named groups
Share = proportion of Strike Action comments.
| Subject area (CAH1) |
Share % |
Pos % |
Neg % |
Neu % |
Sentiment idx |
| Social sciences |
15.3 |
3.3 |
92.2 |
4.5 |
−57.0 |
| Historical, philosophical and religious studies |
11.0 |
3.4 |
92.4 |
4.2 |
−57.2 |
| Language and area studies |
9.4 |
2.7 |
91.7 |
5.6 |
−59.1 |
| Law |
6.5 |
3.2 |
93.1 |
3.7 |
−57.2 |
| Psychology |
6.2 |
4.3 |
91.4 |
4.3 |
−55.0 |
| Geography, earth and environmental studies |
6.0 |
2.0 |
91.8 |
6.3 |
−57.0 |
| Business and management |
3.7 |
4.0 |
89.9 |
6.1 |
−52.4 |
| Combined and general studies |
2.6 |
5.1 |
90.3 |
4.6 |
−57.6 |
| Media, journalism and communications |
2.5 |
1.2 |
95.2 |
3.6 |
−61.6 |
| Biological and sport sciences |
2.4 |
2.5 |
88.2 |
9.3 |
−52.8 |
Notes: All subjects are net negative. Small-volume subjects can show larger swings.
Demographic snapshot (share within Strike Action)
| Segment |
Share % |
Pos % |
Neg % |
Neu % |
Sentiment idx |
| Age — Young |
91.8 |
3.3 |
92.4 |
4.3 |
−57.4 |
| Age — Mature |
7.0 |
4.9 |
91.8 |
3.2 |
−53.4 |
| Sex — Female |
66.7 |
3.1 |
92.9 |
4.1 |
−57.8 |
| Sex — Male |
31.8 |
4.0 |
91.4 |
4.7 |
−55.6 |
| Mode — Full-time |
95.3 |
3.4 |
92.3 |
4.3 |
−57.1 |
| Mode — Part-time |
3.3 |
3.2 |
95.0 |
1.8 |
−56.1 |
| Disability — Not disabled |
80.5 |
3.4 |
92.3 |
4.3 |
−56.9 |
| Disability — Disabled |
18.3 |
3.3 |
92.9 |
3.8 |
−58.0 |
| Ethnicity — White |
77.5 |
3.2 |
92.6 |
4.2 |
−57.3 |
| Ethnicity — Asian |
6.0 |
4.5 |
90.5 |
5.0 |
−55.3 |
| Ethnicity — Black |
1.4 |
7.4 |
84.2 |
8.4 |
−49.2 |
| Ethnicity — Not UK domiciled |
8.0 |
3.5 |
92.2 |
4.3 |
−56.9 |
What this means in practice
With sentiment this negative and broad-based, the operational response matters as much as policy. Prioritise the large cohorts (full-time, young undergraduates) and the biggest subjects by volume.
- Communicate with precision
- Keep a single, always-up-to-date source of truth covering what is affected, what is unchanged, and what mitigation exists.
- Publish concise weekly (or daily during action) updates: what changed, why, and next steps.
- Protect learning and assessment continuity
- Pre-plan catch-up windows and alternative activities/resources so students know how lost learning will be recovered.
- Stabilise assessments: clear deadline policies, alternative formats where needed, and explicit marking timelines.
- Make mitigation visible and trackable
- Log lost teaching hours and map them to recovery actions per module/programme.
- Track and close student-reported issues; share closure rates and time-to-resolution.
- Target support by volume
- Prepare subject-specific mitigation packs for the largest contributing areas (e.g., social sciences; historical/philosophical/religious; languages).
- Tailor messaging for high-volume demographics (full-time, younger cohorts), while ensuring parity across all groups.
How Student Voice Analytics helps you
- Quantifies topic and sentiment for Strike Action across cohorts and subjects, with drill-downs from provider to school/department.
- Surfaces segment-level patterns by CAH code and demographics (age, domicile/ethnicity grouping, mode, disability), enabling targeted mitigation.
- Produces concise, anonymised summaries to brief programme teams, unions and committees, with export-ready tables for governance papers.