|
|
|
Principles for Humor in the College Classroom
The power of humor in the college classroom
is very limited and very recent and because of the influential gender issues noted
above, college instructors may want to use humor carefully. The following principles
have been culled from the research reviewed in this project in an effort to provide
guidance for college instructors.
- Instructors can encourage laughing at humorous circumstances to build a feeling of unity in the classroom.
- Instructors can use humorous examples and present concepts humorously to help students comprehend and retain lecture material.
- Humor should be appropriate to the situation, personable, and original, and it should contain something of the personality of the instructor or the student.
- Instructors may not want to use humor in tests or other anxiety-producing situations. Humor has been shown to be detrimental when pressure to perform makes students anxious, particularly with less intelligent students.
- The target of the humor should be something or someone other than the student or the instructor.
- Instructors should take special care to avoid self-disparaging humor because it can undermine their credibility and make them seem less confident and less intelligent.
- Even though humor that has female targets is perceived as funnier than humor that has male targets, caution should be used so as not to perpetuate sexist notions.
- Male instructors can use almost all units and types of humor to increase their evaluation ratings.
- Female instructors should avoid the use of puns or they are likely to greatly decrease their effectiveness ratings.
- Female instructors may be able to increase their appeal ratings but not their overall evaluations by using hostile, especially sexual-hostile, humor. This is one of the few positive correlations between female instructors and use of humor.
- Instructors who establish high immediacy through behaviors other than humor may not want to use a high degree of storytelling because it may be seen as a digression.
- Instructors can use funny stories related to the topic to improve students' overall attitudes.
- Male instructors can use topic-related humor to increase their ratings, but female instructors who use topic-related humor will achieve only marginally higher ratings.
- Male instructors can use humor that distracts students from the lecture topic and still achieve high appeal ratings, but female instructors who do so will likely be rated lower in appeal, effectiveness, and delivery.
- To be perceived as effective by students, instructors should use humor that adds to the content of education and contributes to the point.
The jury is still out on how female instructors' use of humor influences students.
Possibly as female instructors become more experienced with using humor their
influence will become more positive.
Since instructors' use of humor is consistently rated in the top ten categories of
student criteria for teaching appeal and since lack of a sense of humor has been rated the twelfth most frequently undesirable instructor characteristic, instructors may
want to consider incorporating a little laughter into their lectures in accordance with
the above principles. A touch of relevant humor will perk up even the dullest topics.
Reference:
Celeste M. Edwards, and Elizabeth R. Gibboney, "The Power of Humor in the College Classroom" 1992 ERIC Document ED346535
|
