Outdoor Pedagogy in Quebec Higher Education: A Current Portrait of the Situation
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background: The decline in physical activity and mental well-being among youth, has increased interest in and use of outdoor pedagogy (OP) as a potential solution. While the benefits of OP appear to be recognized in primary and secondary education, its use in Quebec’s (Canada) higher education institutions (HEI), including CEGEPs and universities, remains underexplored. Method: A mixed-method study was conducted to examine OP practices in Quebec HEI. An online survey was used to collect data on teachers’ profiles, pedagogical approaches, and motivations, among other factors. Results: Thirty-six teachers participated, representing various disciplines, though physical education and outdoor intervention were often overrepresented. College teachers favoured diverse and immersive environments, while university teachers tended to use peri-urban forests. Their motivations for adopting OP included raising environmental awareness, developing skills specific to outdoor contexts, and leveraging OP as a learning tool. Conclusion: This study provides an initial overview of OP practices in Quebec’s HEI, highlighting motivations, challenges, and more. Motivations for using OP converge on the importance of pedagogical authenticity and student benefits, such as stress reduction and improved well-being.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.010 | 0.003 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.004 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.012 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".