TABLE 5.

Coding rubric for survey question 3: Please describe whether this course (name) was easy or difficult for you. What made it that way?

	Definition
A. Category: Easy
High preparation and interest	Student has strengths in this content area, is interested in the course, and/or has prior course work/learning in this area that leaves the student feeling prepared for the course.
Low/manageable workload	Easy courses have low student workload expectations, or there are “reasonable” workload expectations (e.g., “not too many big projects”).
Course content is “logical”	Course material is “commonsense” or course content seems “logical” to students.
Clear alignment	Expectations for what is important are clear; class content and exams are well matched.
High support	Faculty help, listen, and provide support (e.g., peers) for studying.
Cognitive demand	Material/content is fact based, requiring memorization or simple comprehension. Critical thinking and higher levels of Bloom’s taxonomy are absent.
B. Category: Hard
Low preparation and interest	Student does not have an interest in the concept/course or does not have adequate preparation for the course.
High workload	Course requires a lot of time, especially out of class (especially with other people), assignments, and reading.
Quick pace	Course has too much content covered too quickly for a student to process.
Unclear importance	Students struggle to determining what is important; there are lots of facts to be memorized and facts don’t seem to “fit” anywhere to students; disorganized course structure makes it hard for students to follow.
Lack of alignment	Assessments do not match with content or approach in the class; most of the grade depends on one or two assessments; students receive little feedback on assessments for improvement.
Low faculty support	Faculty do not appear to help and support students; lots of learning being done on their own (independent learning).
High cognitive demand	Material/content is more complex; requires critical thinking, application, analysis, synthesis, and/or evaluation.
C. Category: Both
Lack of preparation made it hard.	Prior knowledge in the content area, skill or needing to transfer information from other content areas
High cognitive load made it hard.	Material/content is more complex; requires critical thinking, application, analysis, synthesis, and/or evaluation. There is more math.
The approach made it easy.	Course incorporated peer groups, faculty support, structure/scaffolding, and/or review.