Charting Progress
The Chart form provides a graphical way to review your progress. It does this by reviewing the data you preselect on the current report. Thus, individual skill session data is charted when Chart is selected while viewing the Progress Detail Report; and the hi-scores of all students in a classroom can be charted from the Student Listing report (available only to instructors and/or administers.)
By default, the Detail Report chart simply shows the overall Net Rate (i.e.,net accurate keystrokes per minute) plotted by session. But you can produce many informative charts by preparing the report data in different ways before you open the Chart form (by clicking on the Chart button on the Reports form).
Pre-sorting the report data by Learning Mode, for instance, will allow you to review different sections of the chart to focus on how you are progressing in Accuracy drills, as opposed to Speed drills. Alternatively, compare your progress in Accuracy drills which use a Currency ($) setting on the slider vs. those using Floating point numbers.
The chart only includes selected data (either by you or by default). Including the Net Rate and Error columns on the same chart helps determine your trends in both speed and accuracy. Or, after sorting by Mode, you can select only those session rows that are from a particular learning mode; again looking for trends in that mode while ignoring earlier Flash Key sessions.
To select only particular rows, click and drag down the rows desired (after first selecting whatever columns you wish included).
The Chart All button on the Chart menu is an easy way to reselect all data on the Detail Report without closing the chart form. A sample is shown above.
Every chart has an "X" and a "Y" axis. The X axis is along the bottom of the chart. The Y axis it the vertical one.
Numeric data is normally used to control the height of the points on the chart and can be estimated in value by looking at the scale on the left or right Y axis, depending on which is relevant. (Seconds or strokes are usually charted on the right-hand Y axis. In this case, the right hand label will so indicate.)
The vertically plotted values may be quite different in size. For instance, Net Rates are (hopefully) much bigger than Error counts. When these two elements are plotted together, Errors are scaled (measured) from the left-hand Y axis and Strokes are labeled on the right.
The drill sequence number (1,2,3, etc.) will normally appear on the X axis, if included in the plot. So will the session data or time, if selected. In addition, all other alphanumeric (i.e., not purely numbers) data selected will be plotted there. This provides you with the ability to determine what type of session produced the results, when it happened, what precision was used, etc. In all of these cases, the height of the bar or line above the x-axis will be indicating the Net Rate, Error count, or other such value related to the drill session described beneath the horizontal axis.
NOTE: If only non-numeric data is pre-selected for a chart, the chart will display meaningless vertical bars above the horizontal axis to show what a chart might look like IF you included numeric data with your selection. Obviously, asking the Chart to graph data with nothing for the vertical axis to scale is an exercise of limited value.
The Chart form includes eight different chart styles for your amazement and amusement. Four are 2-d, meaning two-dimensional. An equivalent four 3-d, meaning three-dimensional, are also available. Use any or all that appeal to you.
The two-dimensional area and bar charts are identical. Essentially, a 2-d bar chart displays the charted value by the height of the bar. The 2-d Area does the same thing using the colored area of the bars. However, the width of the bars are all considered "1 unit wide" when calculating their areas, so the height and the area amount to the same thing.
This chart style connects the dots depicting the charted values above the elements of the drill indicated on the X axis. These are quite useful for detecting strong trends and erratic behavior.
This chart is like a bar chart without the lower portions of the bars. When two or more elements are plotted on the same chart, the left-most element on the report fills the foreground. Each successive element to the right on the report then appears above the prior ones only when their values exceed them.
The 3-d charts basically function as described above. But now a third axis (the Z axis) appears, beginning at the right end of the X axis. This new axis identifies each report column selected individually. That column's data is plotted directly above, so that the chart takes on a "layered" look. While considered more attractive by some, they are only occasionally more clear.
The Chart form's Size to Page button is designed to show how the chart will appear if printed in maximum scale available to fit on the selected page. This is done by checking the currently selected printer and adjusting to the page layout specified there. The result shows on the screen the maximum rectangle the chart can occupy on the screen and still fit on the page when printed.
See Printing Charts for more information on sizing the chart to fit on a print page.