Use of Multi-Part Integrative Short-Answer Questions in an Upper-Level Biochemistry Course

As students move through a college science curriculum, expectations for their performance increase as they transition from one level of Bloom’s taxonomy to another. To help students in a one-semester biochemistry course better understand the relationships between different topics and improve their skills in analysis and synthesis, multi-part short-answer questions were used as part of problem sets and in-class exams. Each question focused on a specific topic but contained four to nine subparts. In general, students were better able to answer the questions when they were presented as homework, likely because they had unlimited access to other class materials, the internet, and other students. However, they did not do as well with similar questions on the exams where individual work was expected and time was limited.The issues raised here are relevant to a wide range of upper-level chemistry classes.