Dear Bill,
I'm not nearly so sage as Mike :-), but have a couple of thoughts on
your proposal.
First, my sense is that AERA Divisions are a kind of community of
practice (of disciplinary peer review) with relatively like-minded
external communities of practice participating in any given Division.
Thus, they have their own theoretical biases, preferred language and
coded meanings.
You did a good job of giving them a sense of CHAT, which, I could be
wrong, may not be familiar territory for reviewers.
I thought you identified quite a few significant data sources.
What I didn't get a sense of was how the data would be organized and
analyzed vis a vis CHAT. Now perhaps you used up your word limit
describing CHAT and so didn't have space to delve into what a CHAT-based
analysis would look like.
You said they critiqued the "data collection and analysis." Perhaps it
was more the analysis than the collection that they wanted to see
strengthened.
You may have felt that having introduced CHAT as a viable theoretical
paradigm that they should feel assured that your analysis and methods
would align with that paradigm. But if the paradigm is unfamiliar to
them, they can only guess at what such an analysis entails.
And as a neophile, I have to admit that I'm intrigued but can't
precisely say what methods of analysis you might employ with the data
sources you mention to address your research questions from within a
CHAT paradigm. But that is my failing (I'm even open to the possibility
that the analysis details are staring me in the face in your proposal
and I have overlooked them).
Just some thoughts.
Thank you for sharing your experience and taking the risk of seeking
public feedback.
And please take my comments as my own attempts to think through the
issues you raise likely lacking the sage advice that Mike and others can
provide in their responses.
In Peace,
K.
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