The relationship of teachers' use of humor in the classroom to immediacy and student learning

Abstract

This study investigated teachers' use of humor in relationship to immediacy and learning. The amount and type of humor recorded by 206 students as observations of things teachers did to show “a sense of humor” were analyzed and correlated with overall immediacy and perceived cognitive and affective learning outcomes. The results indicated that amount and type of humor influenced learning, that students were particularly aware of tendentious humor, and that an overdependence on tendentious humor diminished affect. The effects of humor were more pronounced for male students and male teachers; however, indications of previous research that humor use negatively influenced evaluations of female teachers and that female teachers' humor was largely different than male teachers' humor were not supported.