Research/Writing
My passion for disability, which is driven largely by my lived personal experiences, is why I pursued a PhD. Disability-focused research and academic writing remain huge priorities for me in my current day-to-day work. Below, you’ll find my peer-reviewed publications, Inside Higher Ed articles, and peer-reviewed book reviews/essays. For questions about any specific publication, please reach out!
Check out some of my recent manuscripts below
These are all manuscripts that I have recently led. Please feel free to reach out to me at karlyball1@gmail.com if a paywall prevents you from accessing any of them!
“Things can be tough”: A qualitative analysis of disability disclosure in graduate school
Understanding graduate students’ experiences with disability disclosure is essential for ensuring equitable access to higher education. Through a systematic review of 173 public Twitter posts related to disability disclosure during graduate school, this study explored the following research question: What factors serve as barriers and facilitators for disability disclosure among graduate program students and applicants? Tweets were chosen for inclusion based on the following criteria: (a) Tweets reference disability disclosure during or when applying to any type of graduate school program and (b) Tweets reference disclosure of a specific illness during or when applying to a graduate program. Using a Universal Design (UD) framework to conduct a qualitative sentiment analysis, we identified key three themes. First, several users conveyed that their awareness of stigma toward graduate students with disabilities made them hesitant to disclose a disability. Second, users explained differences in the ways that individuals should disclose to Disability Services (DS) versus to individuals in their programs, and they noted that the barriers and facilitators varied depending on the outlet where someone discloses. Finally, users emphasized the importance of strategically timing disclosure, though users’ advice as to which point in the graduate school process was most advantageous to disclose varied widely. Recommendations for future departmental policies and practices to support graduate students with disabilities are discussed.
Sick of subpar support: An exploratory study of chronically ill college student experiences
This study investigated factors that chronically ill students perceived as influencing their experiences in higher education. Twenty undergraduate students who were currently enrolled in a 4-year, private institution participated in semistructured interviews to discuss their experiences. Findings from a reflexive thematic analysis revealed three key themes: (1) some participants described numerous illness-related financial barriers to higher education; (2) multiple participants recalled challenges when accessing illness- or disability-specific resources on campus (e.g., student health and disability services); and (3) many participants recalled feelings of pressure to meet performance standards in instances where chronic illnesses made meeting those expectations difficult. Recommendations for policy, practice, and future research are discussed.
Chronically ill college student well-being: A systematic review of the literature
The purpose of this systematic review is to synthesize existing empirical research on physically chronically ill college student well-being, focusing specifically on individual- and institution-level factors that could become targets for future intervention and research. This review was conducted to answer the following research question: What malleable student-level and institution-level factors are related to well-being for students with physical chronic illnesses in four-year higher education programs? The electronic databases Academic Search Complete, EBSCO EJS, and ProQuest Central were searched for peer reviewed empirical studies published between 1990 and 2021. A process of citation chaining and a scan of sources from other relevant literature reviews were used to locate additional articles. The results of this review offer three major implications. First, with only 13 studies identified in the literature, there is a critical need for additional research investigating well-being for physically chronically ill college students. Second, the correlational nature of the extant literature does not elucidate the causal directionality of the relationships among the variables of interest. For example, although findings have correlated physical chronic illness and poor mental health outcomes, it remains unknown how causality operates, which can create challenges as institutional leaders determine how to effectively support this group. Third, no studies to date have investigated institutional practices that may result in increased well-being for these students. Future researchers and institutional leaders should support a decrease in negative outcomes along with mechanisms to increase experiences of well-being to advance opportunities for physically chronically ill students to flourish.
Supporting chronically ill college student wellbeing through campus counterspaces
The scarcity of literature in the field of chronically-ill college student development makes it difficult to determine what factors may contribute to greater levels of wellbeing for this unique group of students. Among other groups of marginalized college students, campus counterspaces have been explored and, in many cases, successfully implemented as part of university efforts to foster student wellbeing. Drawing from literature on campus counterspaces and a series of interviews with chronically-ill college students, this paper explores potential uses of campus counterspaces as a means for facilitating wellbeing among chronically-ill college students. We consider potential advantages and disadvantages when determining whether counterspaces may be useful in various higher education contexts and provide recommendations for implementation at individual institutions.
Despite chronic illness being widespread and increasing in prevalence, curricula largely avoid preparing learners to navigate chronic, often life-threatening, conditions in their daily lives or to prepare learners for the implications of these conditions. In this paper, I begin by discussing an exchange about chronic illness and death that I recently had with a student I called Maya (a pseudonym). I consider how my conversation with Maya reoriented my thinking on the relationship between chronic illness and death. I next illustrate that reorientation in thinking by discussing death’s representation in film, which I propose as a viable means forward for elucidating the relationship between death and chronic illness for others.
As Twitter’s (or X’s) influence permeates aspects of education, researchers must consider how to ethically and effectively leverage the unique types of data that this social media platform offers. This paper provides recommended methodological practice considerations for working with qualitative Twitter data toward the advancement of education research. To inform our methodological protocol, we draw from a larger study that investigated disability disclosure during graduate school on Twitter. We use examples from our study to highlight similar protocol considerations that future researchers might take when working with qualitative Twitter data, including use of the website’s advanced search feature and use of multifaceted analysis approaches for capturing this data’s often unique complexity. We further provide ethical considerations for conducting social media research in education. Finally, we discuss the utility of the practices described in this article for moving education research forward via qualitative Twitter data.
Check out my dissertation on postsecondary financial need among students with disabilities here!
Inside Higher Ed pieces
Ball, K. & Traxler, R.E., (2023). Disclosing your disability in grad school. Inside Higher Ed.
Ball, K. (2022). Professors, stop telling your students not to get Ph.D.s. Inside Higher Ed.
https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2022/04/19/faculty-should-be-careful-whom-theyadvise-not-get-phd-opinion
Ball, K. (2022). Colleges should make it OK for professors to disclose disabilities. Inside Higher Ed.
Peer-reviewed book reviews/reflective essays
Ball, K., & Steinmetz, C. (2022). Review of the book "Campus counterspaces: Black and Latinx students’ search for meaning at historically White universities". In Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management 44:3, 310-315.
Ball, K. (2021). Review of the book “Being Heumann: An unrepentant memoir of a disability rights activist”. In Journal of Postsecondary Education and Disability, 34(4), 375-377.
Ball, K. (2021). When you knead structure: Can hobbies alleviate pandemic related anxiety? In Review of Disability Studies: An International Journal, 17(1), 6-8.