Principals as STEM leaders: Building the evidence base for improved STEM learning. Final Report.

While the importance of principals as instructional leaders has established their key role in promoting high-quality teaching and learning in classrooms, there has been relatively limited research into STEM-specific instructional leadership. Principals as STEM Leaders – Building the Evidence Base for Improved STEM Learning (PASL) was undertaken to address this gap. PASL was a national research project conducted with Australian school principals and school leadership teams, aimed at building educational leadership capacity in STEM education. It has produced a set of three evidence-base professional learning programmes, co-designed with principals, to build capability to effectively drive whole-of-school collaborative effort in STEM teaching and learning. This report summarises the theoretical underpinning of the project and the approach to the creation and trial of the professional learning materials. The report also details the findings and recommendations drawn from research conducted as part of the PASL project. The PASL project was funded by the Department of Education, Skills and Employment (DESE) under the Inspiring all Australians in Digital Literacy and STEM – Embracing the Digital Age measure of the National Innovation and Science Agenda