The science of learning or “learning sciences” refer[s] to a multidisciplinary field of research that incorporates evidence-based practices from child neuroscience, psychology, sociology, behavioural development, and cognitive learning (Chambers, 2020). Insights from the science of learning such as Cognitive Load Theory (see Sweller et al., 2019) and retrieval practice (e.g., Agarwal et al., 2021) provide strong rationales for instructional approaches that are broadly under-utilised in primary and secondary schools in Australia. Despite this, school principals seeking to adopt a whole-school, science of learning approach do so in a contested environment in which some argue whether these ‘evidence-based’ instructional approaches can be universally applied (Sawyer & Hattam, 2025). Therefore, a principal or school leadership team’s decision to adopt such approaches take place in a uniquely political change management space and those contemplating science of learning approaches must be strategic in how they introduce and approach such change. Drawing upon Dynamic Capabilities (DC), this study examines how school principals and leaders recognise the need for change and begin to strategically engage and seize opportunities, mitigating threats, and then begin the reconfiguration of teaching and leadership practices in their schools.

This project is a four-year longitudinal investigation into the change processes undertaken by 63 primary and secondary schools that adopt instructional models aligned with the science of learning. The goal is to understand the mechanisms that best support schools in transitioning to these instructional models, and how such changes impact the schools and their students. This multi-stage approach included structured professional learning (PL) content, a visit to a school who had well-established practices and a system of tracking progress over time (e.g., identification of school leader and teacher goals, alongside reflections on their practices). This presentation focuses on interview data collected from principals and school leaders from 50 primary and secondary schools in the state of Victoria in Australia prior to the multi-staged approach and focuses on principal’s perceptions about whole-school change, highlighting their reasons for pursuing change and their insights into the change journey process. For the purpose of this presentation, principal interview data were analysed to address the following research question: How do school leaders sense, seize, and reconfigure teaching and learning practices when engaging with instructional practice reform?

Dynamic Capabilities (DC), originating in strategic management, has been widely used to explain how organisations adapt and innovate in changing environments (Teece, Pisano & Shuen, 1997; Teece, 2007). At its core, DC describes an organisation’s ability to integrate, build, and reconfigure resources, routines, and competencies to sustain performance in changing contexts. Teece (2007) further disaggregates DC into three microfoundations: the capacity to (1) sense and shape opportunities and threats, (2) seize opportunities, and (3) maintain competitiveness through enhancing, combining, protecting and, when necessary, reconfiguring resources and routines (p. 1319).

Applying DC to school leaders’ decision-making and experiences offers a distinctive theoretical contribution because schools increasingly confront system-level, pedagogical, and workforce pressures (e.g., declining student achievement outcomes, teacher satisfaction and teacher turnover, and shifts toward school-wide instructional approaches), yet the mechanisms through which schools successfully adapt remain under-examined. While research on professional learning (PL) and instructional reform has emphasised the importance of gaining new knowledge, behaviours, skills and practices (Sims et al., 2021), it has offered limited insight into how schools build the internal capabilities required for sustained instructional transformation. DC provides a powerful lens to examine these processes.

We conceptualise schools not merely as instructional sites, but as organisational actors capable of developing adaptive capacity. For international readers, this aligns with global debates on whole-school instructional practice (e.g., structured literacy, explicit instruction, cognitive load theory) and how school reform is successfully managed.

This study adopts a qualitative multiple-case design involving 50 primary and secondary schools participating in a professional learning initiative focused on building teacher capability in the learning sciences. The schools voluntarily opted into the initiative, indicating a pre-existing motivation in instructional improvement and therefore providing a natural space for examining capability development. Semi-structured interviews with school principals and leadership teams were employed using an interview guide to explore leaders’ motivations and expectations about embedding or enhancing principles of learning sciences into their instructional model. The interviews incorporated prompts regarding decision-making, drivers of change, leadership strategies, engagement with PL, staff responses, and anticipated challenges. Semi-structured interviews were chosen as a way of structuring the narrative while also allowing for flexibility so that participants could discuss topics of specific importance to them. Interviews were audio-recorded and auto-transcribed using REV and were approximately 45 minutes. Participants were offered an opportunity to review and edit their original transcript within four weeks of receipt. After this point, all transcripts were pooled for analysis. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and coded inductively, with subsequent deductive coding aligned to the DC microfoundations of sensing, seizing, and reconfiguring. The utilisation of DC as an analytical framework enabled understanding of school leader decision-making and actions based on the following microfoundations: 1. Sensing. This microfoundation revealed the performance gaps and concerns regarding inconsistent teacher practice (the “teacher lottery”) that prompted a desire for change in instructional approaches. Interview data indicated that principals and leadership teams sensed a need for change based on their student data and observable inconsistencies across classrooms. 2. Seizing. With a focus on mobilising resources to act on change, the school leaders seized structured PL learning to build teacher capability by leveraging targeted modelling of practice from internal and external educational experts so they could action practical strategies in their classroom. While leaders wanted actionable and practical results, they also recognised that a commitment to teacher capabilities would take time. 3. Reconfiguring. Embedding new instructional models, restructuring routines (e.g., daily reviews and engagement norms), pacing implementation, and restructuring the timetable (e.g., literacy blocks) were key actions identified by the leaders as tangible and intangible assets that would give them a competitive edge. By examining the perspectives of 50 school leaders, this study offers insights into how capabilities are framed and developed in school reform processes.

Preliminary analysis identified patterns, aligned to each microfoundation, that support instructional reform and adaptive capacity. First, schools differ significantly in their sensing capabilities, particularly in how they interpret data, problematise inconsistency, and recognise instructional opportunities. Schools with stronger sensing capabilities linked reform to equity, student trajectories, and pedagogical purpose, rather than only to accountability metrics. Second, seizing capabilities appear contingent on the availability of key opportunities, yet while structured PL was valuable it was the modelling of practices by experienced and passionate teachers within and outside the school which was key. Internationally, this finding contributes to debates around how PL needs to be strongly aligned and embedded into practice, allowing teachers to make meaningful links between theory and practice. Third, while many schools demonstrated a willingness to seize new instructional approaches, reconfiguring capabilities were approached differently. While most changes were intangible, such as creating new instructional models that provided key strategies and engagement routines, there were also reconfigurations in timetabling (e.g., creating literacy blocks). A mixture of tangible (e.g., curriculum, structured literacy block in timetable) and intangible (instructional models, routines, knowledge) reconfigurations were required for successful implementation. We expect the study to show that the dynamic capabilities microfoundations offer an explanatory framework for understanding school approaches to instructional reform. Rather than attributing implementation success to leadership charisma, professional learning quality, or teacher buy-in alone, DC foregrounds the organisational processes and decision-making through which reform becomes embedded. This contributes to two key international debates: (1) scaling instructional change, particularly considering pedagogical reforms, and (2) sustaining change, where building capability is central.

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