The opinions of twenty students should carry more weight than that of one student. Sometimes students disagree with each other and results are spread across three or more response options. In some cases, the disagreement may result from differences in the background or interests of the students. A teacher may be excellent for one group of students but not for another. When comparing results for different courses, limit the comparison to similar courses.
Required courses tend to get lower ratings than courses taken as electives.
Courses in the fine arts and humanities tend to get the highest ratings. Science and engineering courses, and social science courses with extensive math content, tend to get lower ratings. Upper level and graduate courses tend to receive higher ratings than lower level courses. Three questions are about student effort and workload. The question about course difficulty is a gauge of how other students perceive a course in this regard.