Agents of nature: understanding teachers’ perceived capability for outdoor learning through an ecological systems framework

Parkin, Nicola 2025. Agents of nature: understanding teachers’ perceived capability for outdoor learning through an ecological systems framework. PhD Thesis, Cardiff University. Item availability restricted.

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Abstract

Time in nature has positive impacts on health, wellbeing, social and cognitive outcomes. Schools may equitably increase time in nature for all children through outdoor learning, but the role of the teacher is under researched. This thesis proposes an ecological model of outdoor learning, with challenges and enablers occurring at three levels: individual teacher; school environment; and national policy. An exploratory sequential mixed methods design is used to explore teachers’ perceptions of their own capability for outdoor learning, and to develop a new quantitative measure of this domain: the School Contexts of Outdoor Learning (SCOOL) scale. Study 1 explored teachers’ views about outdoor learning using thematic analysis of interview data. Themes revealed conflict between teachers’ expressed beliefs in the value of outdoor learning and their actual practice, with teachers perceiving both individual limitations and systemic constraints. Studies 2i, 2ii and 2iii were used to develop and test items for SCOOL scale. Study 3 collected data from a large sample of UK teachers to enable the validation of the scale. The SCOOL scale had good internal consistency, test-retest reliability and convergent validity with other related measures. School location, country and age of children were found to be significant predictors of SCOOL scores. In Study 4, the new SCOOL scale was used in a pre-post design to assess the impact on teachers of participating in WWT’s Generation Wild programme. Teachers reported improved wellbeing, closer connection to nature and greater outdoor teaching time post intervention. Crucially, their perceived capability for outdoor learning also increased. These findings show that the SCOOL scale is suitable both for comparison across environmental contexts and also to measure change over time. Using Generation Wild as a case study, suggestions are made for how the design of future interventions could tackle all three levels of the ecological model, to increase rates of outdoor teaching.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Date Type:	Completion
Status:	Unpublished
Schools:	Schools > Psychology
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	17 December 2025
Last Modified:	17 Dec 2025 11:06
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/183311

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