KEYWORDS: humor, university, college, higher education, classroom, teaching.

ABSTRACT.Studies indicate college students overwhelmingly prefer professors who utilize humor in their instruction and interaction with students to those professors who do not. Authors were participants in the University of Pittsburgh undergraduate ‘First Experience in Research’ program, and this research brief constitutes their review of literature and description of a content analysis study intended to identify predominant factors in student preferences. The review of literature confirms the common notion that professors who use humor in instruction and interaction with students are perceived as having more interesting courses, more enjoyable content, and less stressful assessments. The literature also suggests that students consider humorous professors more approachable and effective, and their classes more stimulating and inviting. The emerging qualitative study seeks to gauge the impact these uses of humor have on students’ likelihood to: 1. engage in higher order or critical thinking; 2. take more intellectual risks; and 3. provide high course evaluations for professors.

Humor may be broadly defined as the quality of being amusing or comic; the ability to make other people laugh. In a context of higher education and this paper, humor more specifically refers to a professor’s use of amusing or comic words, actions, or reactions while instructing, engaging, and interacting with students, managing her classroom, and/or setting a tone for timely and appropriate mirthful response to content or activities (Lovorn & Holaway, 2014). Examples of a professor’s use of humor relating to content might include augmenting lectures with witty or mirthful anecdotes, enriching PowerPoint presentations with satirical imagery or multimedia, incorporating comical examples or scenarios in written assignments or assessments, or inviting and facilitating students to express irony, hyperbole, or parody in their writing or course activities. Studies indicate these and similar applications of humor in contexts of education are popular with college students at both the graduate and undergraduate levels (Torok, McMorris & Wen-Chi, 2014). The purpose of this research brief was to conduct a review of recent literature on this topic, and to outline and describe a content analysis study intended to investigate students’ perceptions of professors’ uses of humor and the impact it has on their likelihood to engage in higher order or critical thinking, take more intellectual risks, and provide high course evaluations.

A Review of the Literature

Authors were participants in the University of Pittsburgh undergraduate ‘First Experience in Research’ program, and in discussing the theoretical framework for this study, we recognized the inherent subjectivity of humor as a researchable concept. Humans come to understand, interpret, and appreciate humor in different ways based on their upbringings, cultural backgrounds, lived experiences, and surroundings (Lewis, 2010; Shiyab, 2008). In short, what is considered humorous for one is certainly not necessarily humorous for all, and in extreme cases, such as the recent tragedy in Paris and other parts of the world have reminded us, one person’s humor may be considered patently offensive to another, even to the point of inciting violence. As Gurtler (2002) and others have noted, this subjectivity has made focused investigations into the nature and scope of humor quite challenging over the past two decades.

Nonetheless, revealing studies have emerged. In reviewing recent literature, we found that studies show humor in the classroom can have positive effects on the attention, engagement, and motivation of students (Berk, 2002; Morrison, 2008), and can help make the learning environment a more welcoming and comfortable place (Lovorn & Holaway, 2014; Posnick-Goodwin, 2009). Teachers and professors who use humor strategies as engagement and motivation tools also report that students take more ownership of in-class work and assignments (Wagner & Urios-Aparisi, 2011), and have higher rates of return on homework and other out-of-class activities (Frymier & Wanzer, 1998). It appears likely that these findings are the result of recent understandings about how humans demonstrate sense of humor and how the brain works in learning contexts. Latta (1999) pointed out that laughter is an indicator of social and mental comfort and discomfort, necessary for complete engagement. This assertion was supported by Provine (2000) and Harlin (2008), who discussed how humor makes people of all ages more receptive to information.

Studies into the use of humor at the university level were found to be varied in scope and complexity. As Torok, McMorris, and Wen-Chi (2004) reminded us, common types of humor used in typical college courses included funny stories or anecdotes, funny comments or responses to the comments of others, jokes, professional humor, puns, cartoons or other humorous imagery, and sarcasm (p. 16). The means by which these types of humor are used is also quite varied, but students who were surveyed in this study reported that professors who employed any of these strategies were considered better at delivering a lesson, more entertaining, and more caring about students’ wellbeing and academic success (p. 16-17).

Additional readings revealed positive links between professors’ uses of humor and students’ motivation to learn, attention to and engagement in class activities, as well as perceptions of and command of content (Lovorn, 2009b; Warwick, 2009). Huss (2008) and Lei, Cohen, and Russler (2010) asserted that classroom humor and laughter was linked to increased levels of students’ motivation as well as several other cognitive benefits. Seidman & Brown (2013) asserted that students are more attuned to content and coursework when the instructor takes time to enrich her or his lesson with humorous video clips, self-effacing gags, or witty discourse (p. 393-4). Content and instruction-related humor strategies have also been shown to embolden students to perceive learning in more relevant, engaging, and dynamic manners, and to promote positive attitude among students regarding coursework (Cornett, 2001; Morrison, 2008; Walker, 2008). Furthermore, in terms of command of content, Suzuki and Heath (2014) connected a professor’s use of humor with measurable increases in students’ lecture recall skills.

Professors’ uses of humor were also shown to have multiple psychological benefits. According to Lei, Cohen, and Russler (2010), humor in the classroom leads to less stress, alleviation of typical classroom tensions, and elevations of self-image and self-esteem. Additionally, professors use humor as a means by which they may diffuse students’ anxieties and decrease their fear of the introduction of vast amounts of new or especially complex information. Such anxieties, it is reported, may distract students from learning content or applying new concepts or skills or ideas (Wagner & Urios-Aparisi, 2011).

Professors who preempt these possibilities by establishing an environment that invites laughter and humorous exchange among course participants report higher than average levels of student motivation, engagement, and participation in such activities (Huss, 2008; Lei, Cohen & Russler, 2010; Posnick-Goodwin, 2009). By opening a lecture or presentation with a humorous anecdote, for instance, an instructor effectively captures the attention of her audience members and conveys that the environment is warm and welcoming, primed for the sharing of ideas or contemplation of new material (Ivy, 2013; Lovorn, 2009a). It is well know that some discussion topics, for instance, can be mentally demanding or emotionally draining. This is particularly true in the social sciences, where subject matter often involves challenges to philosophical orientations, preconceptions of society and culture, and political or religious affiliations. In a classroom where these topics are brought up with regularity, students can become disenfranchised or discouraged from participation simply by the headstrong comments or opinions of others. Professors report that one effective way to offset this phenomenon, and even to introduce potentially divisive topics or get students to consider alternative perspectives, is to open with humorous imagery, video clips, or scenarios. Doing so, it is rationalized, disrupts pervasive nonverbal and verbal tensions and again, conveys to students that the classroom is supportive of academic risk-taking (Lovorn & Holaway, 2015).

This support of risk-taking cannot be overvalued. Professors who use humor to establish classroom environments of trust promote students’ social, physical, and emotional wellbeing. This in turn leads to their increased engagement in metacognition, the ability to think aloud, and to contribute creatively to class activities (James, 2001), and facilitates students’ deeper contemplations of complex concepts, how those concepts relate to their lives, and other manifestations of deep thinking and challenging cognitive processes (Harlin, 2008; Hickman & Crossland, 2004-2005; Paterson, 2006; Seidman & Brown, 2013).

Further research indicates that humor positively impacts students’ social interactions with not only the professor, but with one another as well. When permitted to laugh, students are more supportive of one another when performing peer evaluations (Makewa, Role & Genga, 2011), more receptive of corrective criticism (White, 2001), and more likely to take developmental feedback seriously (Berk, 2002). Additionally, McMorris, Boothroyd, and  Pietrangelo (1997) suggested that students’ perceptions of assessments and testing could be improved with the inclusion of humor in some form or fashion. Interestingly, studies show that when given a chance to evaluate the course instructors, on the ubiquitous end-of-term evaluations, college students generally rate faculty members who are deemed “humorous” or “funny” higher in virtually every category. In particular, they find funny professors more confident, more prepared, more competent, and ultimately, more effective (Seidman & Brown, 2013; Torok, McMorris & Wen-Chi, 2004).

It should be noted that not all of the findings in our review of recent literature revealed positive impacts of humor in the classroom. While students and professors alike stand to benefit greatly from a learning environment infused with laughter, we did find several studies that focused on the use of inappropriate types of humor in the classroom. Of course, jokes of a sexual or vulgar nature, references to illegal behavior or activities, disparaging humor targeted at one student, and “targeting” of certain groups based on their gender, ethnic group, religion, political affiliation, sexual orientation, or appearance was identified as inappropriate (Wanzer, Frymier, Wojtaszczyk & Smith, 2006). Furthermore, Wanzer, Frymier, and Irwin (2010) identified a potentially destructive incongruity that could emerge as a result of disparaging or offensive humor (p. 7). These distractions, it is commonly assumed, would certainly lead to a potentially irretrievable erosion of classroom cohesion. Interestingly, we also found that even types of humor commonly deemed “appropriate,” particularly funny comments and sarcasm, could also be perceived as inappropriate if students perceived them as invasive or unwelcomed (Huss, 2008).

We recognize the subjective and situational nature of humor, and concur with findings that many of these types of humor could be advantageous to the learning environment. Broad, disparaging remarks, for instance, could be issued to capture students’ attention and facilitate their creative thinking (Wanzer, Frymier, & Irwin, 2010); however, research consistently reinforces the common knowledge that the employment of these and other inappropriate types of humor without such reasoning, particularly that which could be considered “targeting,” or anything unwelcomed, increased the likelihood of student dissention and a professor actually stands to lose students’ respect and attention (Lei, Cohen & Russler, 2010; Torok, McMorris, & Wen-Chi, 2004).

Additional pitfalls include making light of sensitive subjects, commenting on students’ appearance, and introducing sarcasm without first establishing an environment for this type of exchange. Lesser distractions were observed in professors who tell humorous but unrelated stories or off-topic conversations. Nonetheless, these and similar practices could be distracting to the instructor’s coherence and order of the lesson at hand. These and similar inappropriate uses of humor, we recognized, could actually be detrimental to students’ understanding, attention, or participation in class activities. What’s more, Morrison (2008) pointed out that fears of such negative backlash as well as societal complexities and paradoxes contribute to a general hesitancy among instructors to engage in humor.

The Emerging Study

Although our collective knowledge of the impact of humor on learning and the learning environment continues to increase, relatively few of these recent studies have focused specifically on college students’ perspectives of their professors’ uses of humor as an instructional or interactivity strategy. By embarking upon this study, we are attempting to fill this gap in the research by answering the following questions:

1. What impact does a professor’s use of humor have on students’ engagement in higher order or critical thinking?
2. What impact does a professor’s use of humor have on students’ engagement in intellectual risk-taking?
3. What impact does a professor’s use of humor have on students’ assessments on end-of-term course evaluations?

Proposed Methodology

We have chosen a content analysis (CA) methodology for this study. There are two primary reasons for this choice. First, according to Neuendorf, CA “relies on the scientific method and includes attention to objectivity, inter-subjectivity, a priori design, reliability, validity, generalizability, replicability, and hypothesis testing, and is not limited as to the types of variables that may be measured or the context in which the messages are created or presented” (2002). Secondly, CA is highly conducive to the study of communication among smaller samples, particularly groups of peers engaged in threaded discussion (Krippendorff, 2004).            

Using CA, data will be acquired from an online dialogue between about 20-25 undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in courses in the College of Arts and Sciences or the College of Education at a major university in Western Pennsylvania, USA. Participants will be asked to respond to online discussion prompts (see below) and will be encouraged to respond to postings from other students in the study. Participants will not be asked to respond to the prompts in any particular order and will be free to express whatever opinion they desired with no negative repercussions or pressure from researchers. Data for this study will be collected over a period of four weeks.

Data will be analyzed from threaded conversations that emerge from each of the following prompts:

1. How, when, and why do your college professors use humor during instruction? Discuss your thoughts on possible advantages and disadvantages of these strategies.
2. How, when, and why do your college professors use humor during non-instructional time? Discuss your thoughts on possible advantages and disadvantages of these strategies.
3. Does your professor’s use humor facilitate higher order or critical thinking? Please explain.
4. Does your professor’s use humor facilitate intellectual risk-taking? Please explain.
5. How does your professor’s use humor impact the way you complete end-of-term course evaluations?

Discussion

College professors seek to enrich their students’ understandings about content and/or skills necessary to engage in related thought processes. Likewise, students commonly express a strong desire to learn in a positive classroom climate and establish strong scholarly relationships with the instructor and their peers (Lovorn & Holaway, 2015). To accomplish these goals, professors would do well to create positive relationships with their students, develop effective classroom climate, and work to reduce students’ anxiety levels (Wanzer, Frymier, Wojtaszczyk & Smith, 2006). When surveyed, students report in overwhelming numbers that they enjoy having professors who use humor in their instruction and interaction. Furthermore, students report greater and more frequent academic successes when they are in a warm, welcoming learning environment (Lovorn, 2009b; Tobin, Ritchie, Mergard & Hudson, 2013). Additionally, it has been shown that students consider instructors who use humor to be more effective and competent in their subject matter (Makewa, Role & Genga, 2011). Finally, approaches such as irony, metaphor, simile, and allegory through lenses of humor have also been shown to have discipline-specific advantages for professors and students (Berk, 2002; Morrison, 2008).

While some research has been done in this area, we feel our study will help fill gaps in existing knowledge. We hope that our content analysis study will reveal students’ perspectives about their professors’ uses of humor and its direct and indirect impacts on their engagement in higher order or critical thinking; the likelihood that they will take more intellectual risks; and the likelihood that it will lead to high course evaluations.

References

1. Berk, R. A. (2002). Humor as an instructional defibrillator: Evidence-based techniques in teaching and assessment. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing LLC.
2. Cornett, C. (2001). Learning through laughter… again.Bloomington, IN: Phi Delta Kappa Educational Foundation.
3. Frymier, A. B., & Wanzer, M. B. (1998). “Make ‘em laugh and they will learn”: A closer look at the relationship between perceptions of instructors’ humor orientation and student learning.Paper presented at the 84th Annual Meeting of the National Communication Association: New York, NY.
4. Gurtler, L. (2002). Humor in educational contexts.Paper presented at the 110th Annual Meeting of the American Psychological Association: Chicago, IL.
5. Harlin, R. P. (2008). What do you really know about learning and development? Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 23(1), 125.
6. Hickman, G. P., & Crossland, G. L. (2004-2005). The predictive nature of humor, authoritative parenting style, and academic achievement on indices of initial adjustment and commitment to college among college freshmen. Journal of College Student Retention Research Theory and Practice, 6(2), 225-245.
7. Huss, J. A. (2008). Getting serious about humor: Attitudes of secondary teachers toward the use of humor as a teaching strategy. Journal of Ethnographic and Qualitative Research, 3(1), 28-36.
8. Ivy, L. (2013). Using humor in the classroom. The Education Digest, 79(2), 54-57.
9. James, D. L. (2001). Split a gut and learn: Theory and research. Farmington Hills, MI: Oakland Community College.
10. Krippendorff, K. (2004). Content analysis: An introduction to its methodology (2nd Ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
11. Latta, R. L. (1999). The basic humor process: A cognitive-shift theory and the case against incongruity. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
12. Lei. S. A., Cohen, J. L., & Russler, K. M. (2010). Humor on learning in the college classroom: Evaluating benefits and drawbacks from instructors’ perspectives. Journal of Instructional Psychology, 37(4). 326-331.
13. Lewis, T. E. (2010). Paulo Freire’s last laugh: Rethinking critical pedagogy’s funny bone through Jacques Ranciere. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 42(5-6), 635-648.
14. Lovorn, M. (2009a). Humor in the home and classroom: The benefits of laughing while we learn. In N. Khadpekar (Ed.), Humour as a Strategy (pp. 161-179). Hyderabad: ICFAI University Press.
15. Lovorn, M. (2009b). Three easy ways to bring humor into the social studies classroom. The Leader, 23(1), 15-16, 20-21.
16. Lovorn, M., & Holaway, C. (in press - 2015). Teachers’ perceptions of humour as a classroom teaching, interaction, and management tool. European Journal of Humour Research.
17. Makewa, L. N., Role, E. G., & Genga, J. A. (2011). Teachers’ use of humor in teaching and students rating of their effectiveness. International Journal of Education, 3(2), 1-17.
18. McMorris, R. F., Boothroyd, R. A., & Pietrangelo, D. J. (1997). Humor in educational testing: A review and discussion. Applied Measurement in Education, 10(3), 269-297.
19. Morrison, M. K. (2008). Using humor to maximize learning: The links between positive emotions and education. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
20. Neuendorf, K. A. (2002). The content analysis guidebook. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
21. Paterson, J. (2006). Did you hear the one about…? Humor in the classroom. Middle Ground, 10(2), 43-45.
22. Posnick-Goodwin, S. (2009). Laughter makes you smarter. California Educator, 13(4), 16-20.     
23. Provine, R. R. (2000). Laughter: A scientific investigation. London: Viking Press.
24. Seidman, A., & Brown, S. C. (2013). College classroom humor: Even pundits can benefit. Education, 133(3). 393-395.
25. Shiyab, S. M. (2008). Humor as a teaching strategy. In Mantero, Miller & Watkins (Eds.) Readings in Language Studies, (pp. 613-626). Grandville, MI: International Society of Language Studies.
26. Suzuki, H., & Heath, L. (2014). Impacts of humor and relevance on the remembering of lecture details. Humor, 27(1), 87-101.
27. Tobin, K., Ritchie, S. M., Mergard, V., & Hudson, P. (2013). Relationships between emotional climate and the fluency of classroom interactions. Learning Environments Research, 16(1), 71-89.
28. Torok, S. E., McMorris, R. F., & Wen-Chi, L. (2004). Is humor an appreciated teaching tool? Perceptions of professors’ teaching styles and use of humor. College Teaching, 52(1), 14-20.
29. Wagner, M. & Urios-Aparisi, E. (2011). The use of humor in the foreign language classroom: Funny and effective? International Journal of Humor Research, 24(4), 399-434.
30. Walker, R. J. (2008). Twelve characteristics of an effective teacher: A longitudinal, qualitative, quasi-research study of in-service and pre-service teachers’ opinions. Educational Horizons, 87(1), 61-68.
31. Wanzer, M. B., Frymier, A. B., & Irwin, J. (2010). An explanation of the relationship between instructor humor and student learning: Instructional humor processing theory. Communication Education, 59(1), 1-18.
32. Wanzer, M. B., Frymier, A. B., Wojtaszczyk, A. M., & Smith, T. (2006). Appropriate and inappropriate uses of humor by teachers. Communication Education, 55(2), 178-196.
33. Warwick, J. (2009). An experiment relating humor to student attainment in mathematics. PRIMUS, 19(4), 329-345.
34. White, G. W. (2001). Teachers’ report of how they used humor with students perceived use of such humor. Education, 122(2). 337-347.