Table 3.

Open comments referring to barriers.

Barrier category	Theme	Coded references	Example
Environment	Negative life circumstances	139	‘COVID and having to shield, not having seen my family outside of my partner since February. It’s all felt very isolated’, ‘Emotional abuse, getting kicked out, having to work so many hours’, ‘My ‘day job’ workload; my younger sister was diagnosed with terminal cancer, and the general impact of coronavirus-having to look at redundancies for staff etc.’
	OU systems	15	‘not receiving my textbooks weeks after my course has started’, ‘long delay in hearing about the exam arrangements’
	People	36	‘My family at home have caused problems with my mental health as they have been critical and unsupportive.’
	Spaces, isolation	26	‘It can be very lonely and isolating when distance learning.’
Skills	Confidence and identity	11	‘Comparing my performance to other students.’
	Social skills	6	‘I find it almost impossible to engage with my peers through the forums or participate during tutorials. Even though I might have ideas and be able to contribute to a discussion I cannot bring myself to draw any attention to myself. It’s hard to just email my tutor if I’m struggling. This is nothing to do with them, or any aspect of the OU, it’s just my anxiety is appalling.’
	Study skills	13	‘I found using the computer system for submitting work stressful at times. This due to my lack of knowledge regarding computers’
Study	Assessment, deadlines, feedback	70	‘Pressure of exams’, ‘The fear of failing my assignments’, ‘the essay questions have been very vague with vague guidance and it has caused a lot of stress trying to work out exactly what is required’, ‘Find assessments very stressful’, ‘deadlines had negative impact’, ‘struggle with reading assessment feedback, good or bad can be triggering’
	Curriculum	59	‘I find that I’m not able to keep up the pace with the suggested deadlines of topics in the modules and that causes me a great deal of distress.’
	Tuition	52	‘My last tutor for my final year was quite absent and not particularly supportive when I struggled with my project.’