Eric
M. Camburn
Education
Ph.D., University of Chicago (1997) Measurement, Evaluation, and Statistical
Analysis (MESA) program.
M.A., University of Chicago (1989) - Social Science Divisional Masters
Program.
B.A., Illinois Benedictine College (1983), Sociology.
Research Interests
Eric Camburn’s research focuses on urban public schools and their
improvement. His early work documented the difficulty poor and minority
students in urban schools have in negotiating the transitions from elementary
school to high school and from high school to postsecondary education.
His current research centers around understanding efforts to improve instruction
in urban schools; including programmatic efforts to improve instruction;
the organizational factors that support such improvement efforts; and
the impact such change efforts have on leadership practice, instruction,
and student achievement. In support of his research on instructional improvement
in urban settings, Camburn’s current work also focuses on the measurement
of instruction and leadership practice. Much of Camburn’s research
involves the use of multi-level statistical models, but he has also conducted
a number of mixed-method investigations. Camburn and his co-authors won
the William J. Davis Memorial Award for the most outstanding article in
the journal Educational Administration Quarterly in 2000.
Sponsored Research
The Study of Instructional Improvement (SII) is a program of research
designed to improve our knowledge about both instructional improvement
in high-poverty elementary schools and the educational practices in such
schools. The study focuses on schools’ responses to research-based,
comprehensive, school-reform models. SII focuses on three of the best-known
and most widely-implemented models: the Accelerated Schools Program, America’s
Choice, and Success for All. The study examines how the interventions
are designed, how they operate, and what effects they have on instruction,
organization, leadership, and student achievement in a large sample of
high-poverty elementary schools. The study is intended to increase knowledge
about such interventions and to help educators use that knowledge to inform
and improve practice. SII also aims to develop and test more general ideas
about instructional improvement and to use those to inform and improve
practice. Camburn is a member of a team of CPRE
investigators at the University of Michigan who designed and conducted
the SII. Camburn’s writing from this study focuses on organizational
supports for instructional improvement, the effect of instructional improvement
efforts on student achievement, and the measurement of instruction.
This study involves an evaluation of a promising professional development
program for school principals, the National Institute for School Leadership
(NISL). The study will be conducted
by CPRE researchers at the University
of Wisconsin, the University of Michigan, Northwestern University, Vanderbilt
University, and the University of Pennsylvania. NISL
is a district-level strategy that is designed to improve student achievement
by arming principals with the knowledge and skills needed to lead instructional
improvement efforts in their schools. It is an intensive two-year program
intended to prepare principals to be outstanding instructional leaders
within the context of standards-based accountability systems. The primary
objective of this evaluation is to assess the effects of NISL
participation on school principals’ practice and their knowledge,
particularly practices and areas of knowledge that are thought to support
instructional improvement. A secondary set of objectives is to examine
connections between institute participation, principals’ practice,
teachers’ efforts to improve their practice, and student achievement.
Third, this project will make progress in our ability to address leaders’
practice through new measurement tools. A central feature of the research
design will be a randomized, delayed-treatment design that compares 20
elementary school principals from a single urban school district who are
randomly assigned to participate in NISL
in Year 1 of the study with 20 principals from the same school district
who are randomly assigned to a group that receives the treatment one year
later. Camburn’s writing on this study will investigate organizational
supports for the improvement of principals’ practice and the association
between principal leadership and teachers’ efforts to improve their
practice.
Selected Publications
- Rowan, B., Camburn, E., and Correnti, R. (Expected publication, 2007) Teacher logs as a tool for studying educational process. In Belli, R., Stafford F. and Alwin, D. (Eds). Calendar and Time Diary Methods: Measuring Well-Being in Life Course Research (pp. 246-271). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
 
- Rowan, B., Camburn, E., & Barnes, C. (2004). Benefiting from comprehensive
school reform: A review of research on CSR implementation. In C. Cross
(Ed.), Putting the pieces together: Lessons from comprehensive school
reform research (pp. 1-52). Washington, DC: National Clearinghouse for
Comprehensive School Reform.
- Camburn, E., and Barnes, C. (2004). Assessing the validity of a language
arts instruction log through triangulation. Elementary School Journal, 105, 49-74.
- Rowan, B., Camburn, E., and Correnti, R. (2004). Using teacher logs
to measure the enacted curriculum: A study of literacy teaching in third-grade
classrooms. Elementary School Journal, 105, 75-102.
- Camburn, E., Rowan, B., and Taylor, J. (2003). Distributed Leadership
in Schools: The Case of Elementary Schools Adopting Comprehensive School
Reform Models. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis. 25(4), 347-373.
- Bryk, A., Camburn, E., and Seashore Louis, K. (1999). Professional
community in Chicago elementary schools: Facilitating factors and organizational
consequences. Educational Administration Quarterly. 35 (Supplement, December),
751-781.
- Roderick, M., and Camburn, E. (1999). Risk and recovery from course
failure in the early years of high school. American Educational Research
Journal. 36(2), 303-343.
- Camburn, E. (1990). College completion among students from high schools
located in large metropolitan areas. American Journal of Education.
98(4), 551-569.
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