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Relevance of perceived teacher humor types for instruction and student learning

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Abstract

The use of humor is assumed to be an effective tool for teachers to promote instruction and student learning. However, research on teacher humor is not yet systematically linked to instructional research. To provide a starting point, a model of teacher humor effects is proposed that refers to a multidimensional conception with different types of humor. To test basic assumptions of the model, a cross-sectional study was conducted with 985 secondary school students from 45 classrooms who were surveyed on their perceptions of teacher humor as well as relevant dimensions of instruction and aspects of their own learning. Two-level modelling revealed substantial relations between teacher humor and instructional dimensions and student learning which varied considerably between different types of humor. Whereas humor related to course material showed positive associations, unrelated humor was negatively related with the investigated instructional dimensions. Two-level mediation analyses indicated that the associations between teacher humor and student learning were mediated by instructional dimensions.

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Notes

  1. Frymier et al. (2008) further differentiates between aggressive humor and a more offensive humor type. However, this differentiation was only substantiated by explorative evidence and was not supported by Bieg and Dresel (2016).

  2. We examined the variances on the level of schools and found for none of the investigated constructs significant differences between schools. Thus, we did not include the school-level in our analyses.

  3. The coefficients for regressing instructional dimensions on teacher humor were drawn from the previous analyses (see Table 3). Coefficients for regressing student learning on instructional dimensions stem from an extended model including both, teacher humor and instructional dimensions as predictors.

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  1. Department of Psychology, University of Augsburg, Universitätsstr. 10, 86159, Augsburg, Germany

    Sonja Bieg & Markus Dresel

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  1. Sonja Bieg
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  2. Markus Dresel
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Correspondence to Markus Dresel.

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Bieg, S., Dresel, M. Relevance of perceived teacher humor types for instruction and student learning. Soc Psychol Educ 21, 805–825 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11218-018-9428-z

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