Sustainability in Education: Investigating Teachers’ Confidence in Organising Learning Beyond the Classroom

Abstract Outdoor learning provides interactive, real-world educational experiences that extend beyond conventional classroom settings and encourage awareness of sustainability. This quantitative study seeks to evaluate teachers’ competence in organising outdoor learning activities, contributing to a more engaging and meaningful educational experience. Adopting a relational survey design within a multi-survey model, the research involved 586 teachers from various subject specialisations working in public and private primary and secondary schools. The “Outdoor Learning Regulation Scale (OLRS)” served as the principal instrument for collecting data. Teachers’ ability to organise and regulate outdoor learning was examined in relation to several variables, including gender, subject specialisation, previous online or face-to-face training in outdoor learning, the use of environments outside school for instructional purposes, childhood environment, and teaching location. The collected data were examined using statistical analysis to provide a detailed understanding of the factors associated with teachers’ outdoor learning regulation competencies. The findings indicated no statistically significant differences in teachers’ abilities to regulate outdoor learning according to gender, subject specialisation, childhood environment, or teaching location. However, significant differences were identified in relation to previous online or face-to-face outdoor learning training and the use of outdoor settings for teaching, offering further insight into the factors influencing teachers’ effectiveness in facilitating outdoor learning experiences. Furthermore, the study highlights the relationship between outdoor learning and sustainability education. By developing teachers’ competencies in managing outdoor learning, the research contributes to integrating sustainability into educational practice and encouraging students’ ecological awareness and sustainable thinking. These findings underline the importance of professional development and focused training in outdoor education, with implications for enhancing sustainability-oriented teaching approaches.