CHART is designed to enable people to reflect upon their experience. It differs from the Repertory Grid and Structures of Meaning programs by introducing cause and effect relationships or temporal sequences: but it relies on users to identify their own items of experience.. It has been used with teachers and Industrial and Commercial Trainers to help them reflect upon the logic and structures of a course. It has been used with product operators to help them reflect on the nature of their work and it has been used with students to help them reflect on their logical and on sequential relationships in a topic they are studying. It is potentially useful for anyone who wishes to reflect on the nature of the relationships in one area of their personal knowledge.
The CHART program starts by allowing the user to input verbal items of information about the topic under consideration. It has various ‘talkabout’ routines for helping the user to produce a complete set of items.
It also allows the user to choose their CHARTing symbols and to draw and define any additional symbols which they want to use. The first interactive part of the program allows the user to identify units to be CHARTed and to categorise these in terms of the symbol which applies.. The second interactive part of the program allows the user to construct a CHART on the video screen and to move and rearrange it until they are satisfied. The final version of the CHART can then be printer out.
Elicit Items of Experience
Offers the users an opportunity to type in a list of ‘items of experience’ for use in the chart.
Talk-about Items
Offers the users an opportunity to reflect and consider the ‘logical’, ‘sequential’ or ’cause and reflect’ relationships and to add, delete or amend items until they have a complete system.
Define a Category System
Elicit from the users the names of a series of categories each of which will be assigned a separate CHARTing symbol.
Choose and Define Symbols
Offers the users a choice of symbols for CHARTing different types of item, it also allows them to define additional symbols as they require.
Sort and Design
Takes the user systematically through their Item of Experience and ask them to assign each one to a unique category (symbol).
Chart on Screen
Allows users to organise their items into a visual chart on the screen and to move and modify the items and the connections between them until the users are satisfied that the chart on the screen represents their understanding of the system being explored.
Print Display
At various intermediate points or at the end of CHART, the users may print out a hard copy of the display on the screen on a printer or on the intelligent X,Y plotter.
