TY - JOUR
T1 - To be funny or not to be funny
T2 - Gender differences in student perceptions of instructor humor in college science courses
AU - Cooper, Katelyn M.
AU - Hendrix, Taija
AU - Stephens, Michelle D.
AU - Cala, Jacqueline M.
AU - Mahrer, Kali
AU - Krieg, Anna
AU - Agloro, Ashley C.M.
AU - Badini, Giovani V.
AU - Barnes, M. Elizabeth
AU - Eledge, Bradley
AU - Jones, Roxann
AU - Lemon, Edmond C.
AU - Massimo, Nicholas C.
AU - Martin, Annette
AU - Ruberto, Thomas
AU - Simonson, Kailey
AU - Webb, Emily A.
AU - Weaver, Joseph
AU - Zheng, Yi
AU - Brownell, Sara E.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © 2018 Cooper et al.
PY - 2018/8
Y1 - 2018/8
N2 - For over 50 years instructor humor has been recognized as a way to positively impact student cognitive and affective learning. However, no study has explored humor exclusively in the context of college science courses, which have the reputation of being difficult and boring. The majority of studies that explore humor have assumed that students perceive instructor humor to be funny, yet students likely perceive some instructor humor as unfunny or offensive. Further, evidence suggests that women perceive certain subjects to be more offensive than men, yet we do not know what impact this may have on the experience of women in the classroom. To address these gaps in the literature, we surveyed students across 25 different college science courses about their perceptions of instructor humor in college science classes, which yielded 1637 student responses. Open-coding methods were used to analyze student responses to a question about why students appreciate humor. Multinomial regression was used to identify whether there are gender differences in the extent to which funny, unfunny, and offensive humor influenced student attention to course content, instructor relatability, and student sense of belonging. Logistic regression was used to examine gender differences in what subjects students find funny and offensive when joked about by college science instructors. Nearly 99% of students reported that they appreciate instructor humor and reported that it positively changes the classroom atmosphere, improves student experiences during class, and enhances the student-instructor relationship. We found that funny humor tends to increase student attention to course content, instructor relatability, and student sense of belonging. Conversely, offensive humor tends to decrease instructor relatability and student sense of belonging. Lastly, we identified subjects that males were more likely to find funny and females were more likely to find offensive if a college science instructor were to joke about them.
AB - For over 50 years instructor humor has been recognized as a way to positively impact student cognitive and affective learning. However, no study has explored humor exclusively in the context of college science courses, which have the reputation of being difficult and boring. The majority of studies that explore humor have assumed that students perceive instructor humor to be funny, yet students likely perceive some instructor humor as unfunny or offensive. Further, evidence suggests that women perceive certain subjects to be more offensive than men, yet we do not know what impact this may have on the experience of women in the classroom. To address these gaps in the literature, we surveyed students across 25 different college science courses about their perceptions of instructor humor in college science classes, which yielded 1637 student responses. Open-coding methods were used to analyze student responses to a question about why students appreciate humor. Multinomial regression was used to identify whether there are gender differences in the extent to which funny, unfunny, and offensive humor influenced student attention to course content, instructor relatability, and student sense of belonging. Logistic regression was used to examine gender differences in what subjects students find funny and offensive when joked about by college science instructors. Nearly 99% of students reported that they appreciate instructor humor and reported that it positively changes the classroom atmosphere, improves student experiences during class, and enhances the student-instructor relationship. We found that funny humor tends to increase student attention to course content, instructor relatability, and student sense of belonging. Conversely, offensive humor tends to decrease instructor relatability and student sense of belonging. Lastly, we identified subjects that males were more likely to find funny and females were more likely to find offensive if a college science instructor were to joke about them.
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U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0201258
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0201258
M3 - Article
C2 - 30110389
AN - SCOPUS:85053678603
SN - 1932-6203
VL - 13
JO - PloS one
JF - PloS one
IS - 8
M1 - e0201258
ER -