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Humor in Pedagogy: How Ha-Ha Can Lead to Aha! Author(s): R. L. Garner Source: College Teaching, Vol. 54, No. 1 (Winter, 2006), pp. 177-180 Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27559255 . Accessed: 18/11/2014 09:59

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HUMOR IN PEDAGOGY

HOW HA-HA CAN LEAD TO AHA!

R. L. Garner

Abstract. Several studies have examined the peda gogical implications and cautions concerning the use of humor in teaching. Humor has been associated with a host of positive physiological and psychological effects. Researchers have identified that educators who use humor in their instruction are more positively rated

by their peers and their students; others have suggested that humor may enhance learning. Although much of this evidence has been anecdotal, the present study assesses the impact of curriculum-specific humor on retention and recall, as well as student evaluations of the course and the instructor. The appropriate use of humor in a classroom setting is discussed and cautions

against tendentious humor are addressed.

A

number of articles have alluded to the benefits of humor in teaching

(Berk 1998; Glenn 2002; Hill 1988; Pollio and Humphreys 1996). The pedagogical use of humor has been shown to have both

psychological and physiological effects on learners. Psychologically, the effects of humor and laughter have been shown to reduce anxiety, decrease stress, enhance

self-esteem, and increase self-motivation

R. L. Garner is the associate dean of the College of Criminal Justice at Sam Houston State University in

Huntsville, Texas.

Copyright ? 2006 Heldref Publications

(Berk 1998). Glenn (2002) suggests that humor can help an individual engage the

learning process by creating a positive emotional and social environment in which defenses are lowered and students are better able to focus and attend to the information being presented. Addition

ally, humor can serve as a bridge between educators and students by demonstrating a

shared understanding and a common psy chological bond.

Physiologically, humor and laughter can aid learning through improved respiration and circulation, lower pulse and blood

pressure, exercise of the chest muscles,

greater oxyg?nation of blood, and the release of endorphins into the bloodstream

(Berk 1998). In his book, Anatomy of an Illness as Perceived by the Patient, Nor man Cousins (1991) strongly touts the

healing effects of laughter and suggests that humor can reduce anxiety, help relieve

stress, and increase mental sharpness?all desirable things in pedagogical settings.

Civikly (1986) concludes that there is a growing body of research relating the use of humor and its positive effect on

teaching and learning. Students indicate that humor can increase their interest in

learning, and research has demonstrated

that students who have teachers with a

strong orientation to humor tend to learn more. According to Dodge and Rossett

(1982), humor as a pedagogical tool can initiate and sustain student interest and

provide a means to engage in divergent thinking. Ziv (1983, 1988) found that a humorous atmosphere in the classroom

positively impacted student scores on

divergent thinking exercises, and Korobkin (1989) indicated that college students report that learning is enhanced

by the inclusion of instructionally-appro priate humor. Hill (1988) suggests that students will often have better recall of a

message if it is presented with humor. Several studies (see Berk 1996; Brown

and Tomlin 1996; Bryant, Comisky, and Zillman 1997; Bryant et al. 1980; Pollio and Humphreys 1996) and my own

observation as chair of a University Excellence in Teaching committee find that students appreciate and enjoy the use

Vol. 54/No. 1 177

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of humor in the classroom. A review of the teaching portfolios of highly-rated college faculty and faculty Web pages on the Internet frequently finds the use of humor listed as an important component of their teaching philosophy. College stu dents asked to describe the positive attrib utes of good teachers frequently mention "sense of humor" (Brown and Tomlin

1996; Kelly and Kelly 1982). Pollio and Humphreys (1996) found

that the connection established between the instructor and the student was key to effective teaching. Lowman (1994)

reported that effective college teachers were most often described as "enthusias

tic," and a strong sense of humor plays a

major role in developing a positive learn

ing environment. Kher, Molstad, and

Donahue (1999) suggest that teaching effectiveness is enhanced by the use of

appropriate humor that fosters mutual

respect, and humor increases student

receptivity to material by reducing anxi

ety in dealing with difficult material and

has a positive effect on test performance

(Bryant et al. 1980). The positive envi ronment of a humor-enriched lecture has

even been shown to increase attendance

in class (Devadoss and Foltz 1996; Romer 1993; White 1992).

Humor should be used cautiously, however, as it can be a potent medium for

communication or a social impediment in

pedagogical settings (Garner 2003). The

use of humor can be complicated because

it may be highly personal, subjective, and

contextual and we cannot always predict

the way it will be received. Things that one person might find humorous, ironic,

or funny may be viewed by others as

trite. Everyone has a unique perception as to what is humorous, so prudence

should be the guiding principle. We iden

tify what we call a "sense of humor" and

like other senses, such as the sense of

taste or smell, people have many differ

ent preferences (Garner 2003). Further, the effective use of humor is not akin to

mere joke telling. Rhem (1998) found that some instructors with only average

student evaluations used twice as much

humor as those faculty members who

were more highly rated. For humor to be

most effective in an academic setting, it

must be specific, targeted, and appropri

ate to the subject matter.

Given this background, the present study will explore the link between humor and learning. Much of the reported litera ture in this area suffers from a number of

problems such as: (1) a limited number of

participants; (2) a weak methodology; (3) primarily limited to elementary-aged chil

dren; or (4) is anecdotal in nature. This

study will address some of these concerns

by more carefully examining the relation

ship of humor as a pedagogical tool and its

impact on learning and retention of infor

mation in a university setting. Measures of

information recall, as well as satisfaction

with the course, the instructor, and the

delivery mechanism, will be assessed.

Specifically, it is predicted that those in the humor group, as compared to the control

group, will report higher general satisfac

tion ratings with the course and will retain more information over time.

Method

Participants

Participants were 117 undergraduate students at a four-year university who vol

unteered to review three one-hour lectures

presented in a distance-education format.

Materials/Instrumentation

A series of three 40-minute lectures on

the topic of research methods and statis

tics were recorded via Sony digital video

equipment. The topic of statistics was

chosen as students have often identified

this as one of the "dreaded" courses in

college. Researchers considered that if

humor was an effective tool, it could find a strong alliance here. At the conclusion

of each session, participants were asked

to complete a brief survey to provide their

assessment of the asynchronous video

course delivery. (Asynchronous courses

are designed so that students can cover

the material at varying times and speeds,

rather than synchronous delivery, which

occurs at the same time for all class mem

bers.) Questions were presented in a 7

point Likert-type format and addressed

topics relevant to the evaluation of the

material (such as, what was your overall

opinion of this lesson? How well do you believe it communicated the important information? What was your impression

of the instructor? Compared to in-class

instruction, how did you like the asyn chronous video delivery?). This proce

dure was consistent with the purported purpose of the study. At the conclusion of the three lectures, all participants were

asked to again rate their assessment of the

asynchronous course delivery, and there

was an additional exercise that required students to recall content that had been delivered over the three viewings.

Design and Procedure

To preserve the main objective of the

study, all participants were told only that

they would be reviewing three hour-long sample lectures presented in an asynchro nous distance education format. The par

ticipants were told that the university was

considering implementing a new educa

tional format for certain courses on cam

pus, and they would be assisting in this

process. Students were asked to review

the material and were told that they would be asked to evaluate the delivery mode and the information presented at

the conclusion of each session.

The participants were randomly

assigned to one of two groups. Both

groups saw the same digitally video

recorded information on the topic of research methods and statistics presented

by the same instructor. The humor group,

however, saw a version of the lecture in

which a humorous story, example, or

metaphor had been inserted at the begin

ning of the lecture and at points approxi

mately fifteen and thirty-five minutes into

the lecture, depending on the content.

(This was accomplished thanks to the

media service technicians who produced a

seamless video by "cutting" the humor

segments into the control lecture videos.)

As mentioned above, humor can be very

subjective, so great care was exercised in

the selection of the humorous material.

The humor material was assessed by a

group of academic judges to insure that

the inset could be considered reasonably humorous, was appropriate in content, and

was related to the material being covered.

For example, in a segment on the report

ing of research findings, the metaphorical

joke about a planned escape by one of two

prisoners in a desert jail was used. The

story finds one prisoner trying to escape

after unsuccessfully persuading the other

to go with him, only learning?after

breaking out?that escape was futile as

there was sand in every direction for hun

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dreds of miles. After capture and return to the cell, the prisoner relates his story of the failed attempted escape. The other prison er shares that he knew about the desert as he had also tried to escape a few years earlier. Incredulous, the first prisoner

exclaimed, "You knew! Why didn't you tell me?" whereupon the other remarks,

"Silly man, you should know that no one

reports negative results." Although a bit

"corny," the message makes the point and

was well received by the student audience.

The inserts varied from less than a minute to approximately two minutes. As

a result, the humor group's video presen

tation was slightly longer than the stan dard lecture group. Participants were

allowed to sign up to view all three ses

sions over the period of fourteen days. This allowed inclusion of the greatest number of participants and provided the

greatest latitude to participant's sched

ules. The final viewing included the eval uation and recall assessment exercise.

After the conclusion of the experiment and after all participants had completed the process of viewing and assessing the

materials, subjects were debriefed via e

mail as to the additional purpose of the

study and the preliminary results obtained.

Results

Of the 117 subjects who originally agreed to be involved in the study, ninety four participated to conclusion. This resulted in a sample of fifty-three females and forty-one males who were randomly

assigned to condition. Only participants who completed all three sessions were included in the analysis. As a result, there

were forty-two participants in the humor

condition (from the originally assigned fifty-eight) and fifty-two participants in the control (from the originally assigned fifty-nine). There were no significant dif

ferences based on race or gender between

groups. Analysis of variance revealed sig nificant difference between the two

groups with the humor condition having higher ratings for overall opinion of the

lesson, F (1, 92) = 21.02, p < .001; how well the lesson communicated the infor

mation, F (1, 92) = 54.86, p < .001; and

rating of the instructor, F (1, 92) = 43.33, p < .001. Most important to this research

effort, subjects in the humor group signif

icantly recalled and retained more infor mation regarding the topic F (1, 92) =

73.81, p < .001. There was not a statis

tically significant difference in the rating of the video delivery mode as both groups rated it positively F (I, 92) = 3.72, p < .06. Descriptive statistics for all condi tions can be found in table 1. The first four items found in the table address the

7-point Likert questions and the final item is the retention score based on a

maximum value of 100.

Discussion

As indicated above, the topic of research methods and statistics was cho

sen because students have identified this as one of the dreaded courses in college and a class in which humor could be a

strong pedagogical tool. The results sup port the notion that humor can have a

positive impact on content retention

among a sample of college students.

Although the use of the asynchronous video delivery might seem somewhat

contrived, this approach was utilized for two reasons. First, more universities are

moving to distance education and asyn

chronous modes of instructional delivery. As a result, the format was appropriate,

especially given the explanation to the

participants that this was an evaluation of

this delivery design. Second, and more

important, this approach allowed us to control for a myriad of subtle and not so subtle differences that could have been introduced by the lecturer?despite the best effort to do otherwise?if the presen tations were live. This procedure insured

a more consistent presentation and

enhanced methodological rigor across

experimental conditions.

Although a content assessment after

each session was possible, pilot testing determined that this might jeopardize the actual focus of the study and, because of

the relatively small timeframe between

viewing the first and third videos, multi

ple assessments of content could intro

duce unwanted bias (such as testing effects). Further, the end-of-video sur

veys presented at the conclusion of seg

ments one and two were intentionally

kept brief for this same reason.

The present study suggests that humor can have a positive effect on student

enjoyment and content retention. The use

of appropriate humor can facilitate a more

relaxed atmosphere and provide a cogni

tive break that allows the student to assim ilate the information (Korobkin 1989).

The use of suitable, content-specific humorous examples may provide a stu

dent with a new perspective on the mater

ial that may lead to a novel cognitive insight (Ziv 1988).

Unfortunately, some educators believe

their role or their topic is too serious to

engage humor or view humor as merely a

disruption. However, the use of appropri ate humor in this study has been shown to enhance the learning environment and

has a significantly positive impact on retention of educational materials in a

real-world academic setting. Follow-up interviews with a random selection of

participants reinforced the notion that the content-focused humor was helpful in

comprehension of the material, made for

a more enjoyable educational experience,

TABLE 1. Descriptive Statistics

Group N

LESSON Humor 42 Control 52

COMUCATE Humor 42 Control 52

INSTRUCT Humor 42 Control 52

DELJVIETH Humor 42 Control 52

RECALL Humor 42 Control 52

Group statistics

M SD SEM

5.7976 0.65388 0.10090 4.8846 1.14881 0.15931 6.1667 0.85302 0.13162 4.7115 1.01627 0.14093 6.2381 0.65554 0.10115 5.0000 1.06642 0.14789 6.1905 0.70670 0.10905 5.8846 0.80814 0.11207

88.4286 4.57001 0.70517 77.2692 7.34344 1.01835

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and created the impression that the instructor took the extra effort to get the

message across. When properly used,

humor can be an effective tool to make a

class more enjoyable, reduce anxiety, and

improve the learning setting. The "ha-ha"

of humor in the classroom may indeed contribute to the "aha!" of learning from the student.

Key words: humor, pedagogy, research

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