Single-access Key - Structural Variants of Single-access Keys

Structural Variants of Single-access Keys

The distinction between dichotomous (bifurcating) and polytomous (multifurcating) keys is a structural one, and identification key software may or may not support polytomous keys. This distinction is less arbitrary than it may appear. Allowing a variable number of choices is disadvantageous in the nested display style, where for each couplet in a polytomous key the entire key must be scanned to the end to determine whether more than a second lead may exist or not. Furthermore, if the alternative lead statements are complex (involving more than one characteristic and possibly "and", "or", or "not"), two alternative statements are significantly easier to understand than couplets with more alternatives. However, the latter consideration can easily be accommodated in a polytomous key where couplets based on a single characteristic may have more than two choices, and complex statements may be limited to two alternative leads.

Another structural distinction is whether only lead statements or question-answer pairs are supported. Most traditional single-access keys use the "lead-style", where each option consists of a statement, only one of which is correct. Especially computer-aided keys occasionally use the "question-answer-style" instead, where a question is presented with a choice of answers. The second style is well known from multiple choice testing and therefore more intuitive for beginners. However, it creates problems when multiple characteristics need to be combined in a single step (as in "Flower red and spines present" versus "Flowers yellow to reddish-orange, spines absent").