Undergraduate research has been shown to have many benefits for students, including degree persistence, feelings of belonging, and transferable research skills. However, there are barriers that prevent students' access to research experiences. Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs) are a potential avenue to lower such barriers. Within STEM fields, physics has been identified as lacking CUREs, prompting our initiative to develop a physics framework to provide instructors with effective practices to develop their own CUREs. Understanding of students' perceptions of the connection between coursework and components of authentic research will inform the framework and assess impacts of course transformations. We probed student beliefs through writing assignments in a traditional lab course, exploring how authentic research elements were viewed in the context of the course. We present the results from analysis of these assignments and discuss how these findings will be used to inform the framework and new physics CUREs.