Kimball, Ezekiel

Job Title

Assistant Professor, Department of Educational Policy, Research & Administration, College of Education

Last Name

Kimball

First Name

Ezekiel

Discipline

Education

Expertise

College access
Connection between social and educational theory
History of higher education
Student learning and development

Show all metadata

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 10 of 10

Open Access
Narrowed Gaps and Persistent Challenges: Examining Rural-Nonrural Disparities in Postsecondary Outcomes over Time
(2019-01-01) Wells, Ryan; Manly, Catherine A.; Kommers, Suzan; Kimball, Ezekiel
Empirical studies have concluded that rural students experience lower rates of college enrollment and degree completion compared to their nonrural peers, but this literature needs to be expanded and updated for a continually changing context. This article examines the rural-nonrural disparities in students’ postsecondary trajectories, influences, and outcomes. By comparing results to past research using similar national data and an identical design, we are able to examine change over time. Results show narrowed gaps from the 1990s into the 2000s, but with rural students still facing persistent challenges and experiencing lower average rates of college enrollment and degree completion.
Open Access
Is first-gen an identity? How first-generation college students make meaning of institutional and familial constructs of self
(2020-01-01) Bettencourt, Genia; Mansour, Koboul E.; Hedayet, Mujtaba; Feraud-King, Patricia Tita; Stephens, Kat J.; Tejada, Miguel M.; Kimball, Ezekiel
Institutions increasingly use first-generation categorizations to provide support to students. In this study, we sought to understand how students make meaning of their first-generation status by conducting a series of focus groups with 54 participants. Our findings reveal that students saw first-generation status as an organizational and familial identity rather than a social identities. This status was connected to alterity and social distance that was most salient in comparison to continuing-generation peers. Our recommendations include re-examining the role of first- generation specific programming on campus, creating opportunities for meaning-making, supporting students within changing family dynamics, and exploring the interaction between first-generation status and other marginalized identities.
Open Access
Disability in Postsecondary STEM Learning Environments: What Faculty Focus Groups Reveal About Definitions and Obstacles to Effective Support
(2018-01-01) Bettencourt, Genia; Kimball, Ezekiel; Wells, Ryan S.
Students with disabilities lag behind their peers without disabilities in success outcomes related to access to, persistence within, and completion of postsecondary degree programs (National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2017). Faculty play a key role in shaping student success. To date, however, most of the work exploring faculty attitudes and behaviors has drawn from a broad sample (e.g., Buchanan, Charles, Rigler, & Hart, 2010; Kraska, 2003; Jensen, McCray, Krampe, & Cooper, 2004; Rao & Gartin, 2003), with only limited exploration of the attitudes and behaviors of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics [STEM] faculty (e.g., Milligan, 2010; Moon, Utschig, Todd, & Bozzorg, 2011). This study seeks to understand how STEM faculty think about and respond to students with disabilities in order to shape effective interventions. Data were collected through a series of four focus groups with 27 participants across 17 STEM majors including lecturers, pre- and post-tenure, and academic administrators. Key findings from the focus groups illuminated the impact of a formal accommodations process, individual approaches to providing support, and perceptions of the STEM climate towards students with disabilities. Recommendations for research and practice include strengthening support and training for faculty in STEM disciplines while continuing to explore these themes across institutional types.
Open Access
Normal schools revisited: A theoretical reinterpretation of the historiography of normal schools.
(2017-01-01) Gowen, Garrett; Kimball, Ezekiel
This paper utilizes a critical post-pragmatist epistemological lens in tandem with an extended case analysis to explore how student affairs professionals process truth claims related to student experience. Findings from the study, which include the limited usage of formal theory and the iterative reconstruction of informal theory, are used to demonstrate the utility of critical, theory-engaged methodology in educational research. Implications for future research and methodological decision-making are offered.
Open Access
Reconciling the knowledge of scholars & practitioners: An extended case analysis of the role of theory in student affairs
(2016-01-01) Kimball, Ezekiel
This paper utilizes a critical post-pragmatist epistemological lens in tandem with an extended case analysis to explore how student affairs professionals process truth claims related to student experience. Findings from the study, which include the limited usage of formal theory and the iterative reconstruction of informal theory, are used to demonstrate the utility of critical, theory-engaged methodology in educational research. Implications for future research and methodological decision-making are offered.
Open Access
Engaging Disability: Trajectories of Involvement for College Students with Disabilities
(2017-01-01) Kimball, Ezekiel; Friedensen, Rachel; Silva, Elton
This study draws on the narrative accounts of eight students with disabilities at a small liberal arts college in order to understand the connections between disability and student engagement. We found that disability plays a mediating role in the classroom; there are variations in access to institutional support; supportive peer networks are important’ and disability identity has a variable salience for these students. We also found that engagement for students with disabilities is multi-dimensional and multi-faceted. We include recommendations for supporting engagement for students with disabilities as well as suggestions for future research.
Open Access
Disability, Admissions, and the Web: An Analysis of College-Going Information in Google Search Results
(2019) Abbott, Jordan; Thoma, Hanni; Steinberg, Rebecca; Kimball, Ezekiel
Open Access
STEM degree completion and first-generation college students. A cumulative disadvantage approach to the outcomes gap
(2020-01-01) Bettencourt, Genia; Manly, Catherine A.; Kimball, Ezekiel; Wells, Ryan
Open Access
Researching Students with Disabilities: The Importance of Critical Perspectives
(2015-01-01) Vaccaro, Annemarie; Kimball, Ezekiel; Wells, Ryan S.; Ostiguy-Finneran, Benjamin J.
In this chapter, the authors critically review the current state of quantitative research on college students with disabilities and examine the exclusion of this marginalized population from much of our research. They propose ways to conduct research that more fully accounts for this diverse and important college population. The authors argue that critical quantitative research will produce more thorough knowledge and, in turn, policies and practices that will lead to more equitable college outcomes for students with disabilities.
Open Access
The Professoriate and the Post-Truth Era: A Historiographic Analysis of Expert Judgment and the Destabilization of Objective Truth
(2018-01-01) Friedensen, Rachel E.; Kimball, Ezekiel
This paper explores the role that distrust of expert judgment plays in conservative critiques of higher education. We propose that academics should abandon the insistence on truth as the standard for the evaluation of research quality. Doing so would separate conservative critiques of higher education from broader concerns over expert judgment via the substitution of judgement criteria more readily accessible to laypeople. Based on evidence about how expert judgment actually functions, we propose utility as a standard accessible to all. We show this by describing a historiographic model of expert judgment within the research university. We close with a call for scholars to acknowledge the conflation of facts and values in their work—that is, its post-truth nature.