Modeling physiological and behavioral signatures of allostatic stress regulation: Preliminary evidence from outdoor schooling for adolescents at risk.

Résumé

BACKGROUND: Outdoor learning is widely used in educational practice, particularly for pupils who experience difficulties in conventional classrooms, yet little is known about how physiological and emotional regulation unfold across the school day in such contexts. Much prior outdoor education research has been interpreted through Attention Restoration Theory (ART) and Stress Reduction Theory (SRT), which frame nature primarily as a restorative stimulus facilitating a return to equilibrium. This study instead adopts an ecological-allostatic perspective, viewing regulation as anticipatory, context sensitive, and grounded in ongoing perception-action engagement with environmental affordances.PURPOSE: The study pursued four aims: (1) to examine physiological and affective response patterns during outdoor versus indoor lessons; (2) to interpret these responses using an ecological- allostatic framework; (3) to model regulation using an idiographic, dynamic time-series approach; and (4) to integrate within-person analyses with cautious nomothetic summaries to understand how pupils recalibrate across learning contexts.METHODS: Intensive longitudinal data were collected from adolescents with school-adjustment difficulties during full indoor and outdoor school days (approximately 100-150 three-minute epochs per pupil). Measures included heart period (HP), short-term heart-rate variability (RMSSD), and end-of-day positive and negative affect. Bayesian Dynamic Structural Equation Modeling (DSEM) was used to estimate person-specific short-horizon dynamics and context-related re-centering, preserving individual regulatory organization rather than relying on group averages.RESULTS: Outdoor lessons were associated with lower RMSSD (indicating greater autonomic mobilization), higher positive affect, and lower negative affect. Context-dependent re-centering was most clearly expressed at the tonic level (HP), whereas short-lag physiological dynamics showed minimal systematic differences across contexts, indicating preserved moment-to-moment regulatory organization. Affective differences reflected context-level shifts rather than dynamic co-fluctuation with physiology.CONCLUSION: Outdoor learning is associated with a pattern of mobilization without destabilization: increased physiological readiness for action co-occurring with positive emotional engagement. Idiographic DSEM offers a tractable and theoretically coherent approach for studying allostatic regulation in naturalistic educational settings and complements restoration-oriented interpretations based on ART and SRT.