1. Instructor Humor in the College Classroom: The Affect of
Student Perceived Appropriateness and Inappropriateness of
Instructor Humor and the Learning Process.
Neville Wiles
Grade Level: College
COM 569
3/14/13

2. Ann Bainbridge Frymier, Melissa Bekelja Wanzer & Ann M. Wojtaszczyk (2008).
Assessing students’ perceptions of inapproprite and appropriate teacher humor,
Communication Education, 57:2, 266-288
This study looked at teacher’s humor in the classroom and tried to give an explanation for
when it is appropriate and when it is inappropriate. Instructors’ humor has been linked to such
things as: improved perceptions of the teacher, enhanced quality of the student-teacher
relationship, and affective learning. The ten most common forms of humor used by college
instructors are: jokes, riddles, puns, funny stories, funny comments, nonsexual hostile, sexual
nonhostile, sexual hostile, and nonsense. For this study, a preliminary humor appropriateness
scale was created with items based on humor in different categories and subcategories. Research
using the incongruity-resolution and disposition theories found that some humor is universally
inappropriate for the college classroom. This study also looked at the possibility that students’
perceptions of teachers appropriateness might differ based on individual differences. The study
researched if humorous messages were received differently depending on who it was that said
the humorous message. This article used incongruity theory, arousal relief theory, and
disparagement or superiority theory to determine why some people find some things funny. This
study examined students at three levels to understand their interpretations of teacher humor.
Humor orientation was the first level examined as is defined as the extent to which someone
appreciates, enacts humorous messages, and perceives themselves as effective in humor
production. Second level examined was verbal aggression which is described as the propensity
to attack the self-concept of another person during social interaction. The final level exam was
communication competence which refers to one’s ability to communicate effectively with others
and achieve interpersonal goals. The first research question: Are some teacher humor behaviors
generally viewed as more appropriate than other humor behaviors? Research question two: How

3. do student’s perceptions of teacher’ humor appropriateness varies as a function of student’s
humor orientation, verbal aggressiveness, and communication competence? The third research
question: How do students’ perceptions of humor appropriateness vary as a function of their
perceptions of teachers’ humor orientation, nonverbal immediacy, communication competence,
and verbal aggressiveness? This study is important for teachers because it shows how students
react to different forms of humor attempts and what kinds of humor the students find to be
appropriate and inappropriate.
Students from midsized Midwestern universities composed the bulk of the participants
and 10 students from a eastern school also participated. The students were asked to fill out an
online survey. There were two groups of students, the groups were divided by the participants
birthday date. Group A reported on teachers in general where group B reported on specific
teachers. There were a total of 352 students that completed the survey. The survey asked
students to rank the appropriateness of humor on a 5 point scale, 1 (very inappropriate) and 5
(very appropriate). The scales examined humor from the categories of: humor orientation,
nonverbal immediacy, student communication competence, verbal aggressiveness, and
conversational appropriateness.
Research question one: Are some teacher humor behaviors generally viewed as more
appropriate than other humor behaviors? The study found, through the surveys, a list of all 41
teacher humor behaviors by appropriateness and found the most appropriate to be ‘teacher uses
humor related to course material’. Research question two: how do students’ perceptions of
teachers’ humor appropriateness vary as a function of students’ humor orientation, verbal

4. aggressiveness, and communication competence? Survey showed all three student
characteristics were predictors of perceiving appropriateness of teachers’ use of humor,
particularly for some categories including Other Disparaging Humor. Research question three:
How do students’ perceptions of humor appropriateness vary as a function of their perceptions of
teachers’ humor orientation, nonverbal immediacy, communication competence, and verbal
aggressiveness? This study showed that none of the teacher characteristics were a significant
predictor of the students’ level of appropriateness. The study showed that teacher characteristics,
except for communication appropriateness, influenced students’ level of appropriateness of
teachers’ use of different types of humor.
College teachers could use this information in their classroom every day. Humor is a
great way to keep a class engaged and to also lighten the mood. This research could be used by
all college teachers to know what kinds of humor will be perceived better than others and when
humor could impair learning. This study gives teachers a list of types of humor behaviors that
students believe to be appropriate.

5. Melissa B. Wanzer, Ann B. Frymier & Jessrey Irwin (2010). An explanation of the
relationship between instructor humor and student learning: Instructional humor
processing theory, Communication Education, 59:1, 1-18
Humor in the college class room can be useful tool to aid learning. This study examines
student learning through the 41 humor behaviors developed in a previous research. The writers
created the Instructional Humor Processing Theory that uses elements of incongruity-resolution
theory, disposition theory, and the elaboration likelihood model to offer an explanation for why
some humor helps students learn and why other types of humor does not. This study had three
research hypotheses and two research questions. The first hypothesis is: There will be a
significant positive relationship between student perceptions of instructors’ use of related humor
and student learning. The Second one is: There will be a significant negative relationship
between student perceptions of instructors’ use of inappropriate humor and student learning. The
third hypothesis is: Instructors perceived as humorous will use more appropriate and
inappropriate humor types than instructors perceived as nonhumorous. The first research
question is: What relationship will students’ perceptions of instructors’ use of unrelated humor
have with student learning? The second research question: What relationship will students’
perceptions of instructors’ use of self-disparaging humor have with student learning? College
instructors can use this study to gage what kind of humor will be helpful to the students learning.
There were 378 students who participated in an online survey to record data for this
study. 343 students from a midsized Midwestern university and 35 from a smaller eastern
institution. The students were asked to think about a teacher they had the previous semester to
answer the survey questions on. The survey was passed off the methodology used by Plax,
Kearney, McCroskey, and Richmond. The survey was interested in how often the teacher used

6. each of the 41 humor behaviors measured on a 5 point scale from 1 (never) to 5 (very often).
The students reported on their level of learning through humor using a 5 point scale from
1(never) to 5 (very often). The students’ perception of their teachers humor was measured using
three 5 point scales ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree”.
Research hypothesis one: There will be a significant positive relationship between
student perceptions of instructors’ use of related humor and student learning. The research
provided a table of results showing reports of related humor behaviors having a positive
associated with learning. Hypothesis one was supported. Research question one: What
relationship will students’ perceptions of instructors’ use of unrelated humor have with student
learning? This study found that unrelated humor did not enhance students’ ability to process the
course content. Research hypothesis two: There will be a significant negative relationship
between student perceptions of instructors’ use of inappropriate humor and student learning.
Both offensive and other-disparaging humor had nonsiginifcant correlations with affective
learning and learning indicators, inappropriate humor did not have a negative impact on learning.
Hypothesis two was not supported. Research question two: What relationship will students’
perceptions of instructors’ use of self-disparaging humor have with student learning? Both
appropriate and inappropriate humor was positively associated with teacher affective learning,
course affective learning, and learning indicators. Research hypothesis three: Instructors
perceived as humorous will use more appropriate and inappropriate humor types than instructors
perceived as nonhumorous. This study found that instructors that used more appropriate and
inappropriate humor were found to be more humorous than instructors who were not found to be
humorous. Hypothesis three was confirmed.

7. College teachers who take a humorous approach or are considering a humorous approach
to teaching would benefit from this study. The report gave a table of the types of humor that was
perceived the best and also informed on what styles of humor helped the most with the students
learning. The survey answers were based of teachers the students had the previous semester, so
the answers have more backing than if the students based their answers off of teachers in general,
this gives more reliable data.

8. Section 1: What I learned about the teachers use of humor in the college classroom.
From reading these two articles about humor in the college classroom, I found out which
types of instructor humor styles are perceived better in the eyes of the students than other humor
styles. Some of the types of humor teacher’s use can be constructive to the learning process and
others can harm learning or the student’s outlook on the teacher. The way that one of the articles
measured this relationship between teacher’s humor and student’s perceptions was through the
Instructional Humor Processing Theory (IHPT) which ties together different elements of:
incongruity-resolution theory, disposition theory, and the elaboration likelihood model of
persuasion (ELM) (Wanzer et al., 2010). This was used to measure the 41 humor behaviors of
instructors developed by Frymier et al. (2008). The study asked how often teachers used each of
the humor behaviors and the results were posted under the Instructor Humor Scale portion of the
paper. Wanzer et al. (2010) also wanted to see how humor affected the students learning abilities
and if the students found their teachers humor to be humorous or not.
Frymier et al. (2008) developed a table listing the 41 teacher humor behaviors from the
least appropriate to the most appropriate from the student’s point of view. They found the least
appropriate humor style to be ‘makes humorous comments about a student’s religion’ and the
most appropriate to be ‘uses humor related to course material’. This table is a very useful tool
for all current college instructors and for new instructors entering into the field that already do or
are thinking about using humor in their class. The study also pointed out that the only kinds of
humor that students labeled as offensive where vulgar humor, drugs, and drinking but did not
include morbid humor, sarcasm, or personal life humor. I found this to be very interesting
because I was sure that sarcasm would be seen as inappropriate to some students. Through these

9. studies they found that students expect teachers to do things to aid in the learning process and
was another reason that related humor was found to be appropriate.
Student characteristics play a major role in the category of other disparaging humor. The
humor style in this category includes: teasing students, making fun of students, and telling jokes
bases on stereotypes. The level of appropriateness for this kind of humor depended on the
students communication orientation. Students who are more verbally aggressive found this
humor to be more appropriate. Those who were found to be highly humor-oriented were more
aware of others reactions to humor styles and make distinctions for when and how humor styles
are appropriate (Frymier et al., 2008). Also the teacher characteristics where a factor.
“Professors that were perceived as humorous used significantly more related, unrelated, self-
disparaging, other-disparaging, and offensice types of humor than less humorous professors”
Wanzer et al. 2010).
In the sense of humor helping a student ability to learn course material, Wanzer et al.
(2010) wrote;
“IHPT proposes that humorous messages must first be cognitively
processed by students; instructor humor must be recognized and then resolved by
student recipients. In addition, humorous messages are evaluated basses on
whether they elicit positive or negative affective responses and if they enhance
ability to process course content. If humor attempts are recognized and resolved
by receivers and elicit positive affective responses, the result is often laughter and
smiling”.

10. The idea was if humor generated a positively, it would lead to greater message elaboration and
enhance the motivation to process information. This was greatly seen with related humor.
Unrelated humor, which was perceived as appropriate by students, was not connected with
students learning since it did not make the students process course material. Self-disparaging
humor was found to be positively related to both cognitive and affected learning, because
students do not expect their teachers to use this type of humor it causes it to be shocking to the
students and makes them pay attention more and retain more information because of it. The
types of humor found to have a negative result on learning was other-disparaging and offensive
humor. Students felt less motivated to process information when an instructor used these humor
types.

11. Section 2: What I might do as a teacher of college students.
I have learned that humor can actually help a student learn course material and related
humor was found to work the best for this. So first off in my college class I would find a T.V.
show that I knew a majority of the students watched and use it to help me explain class related
material. It could be using the characters names in an example or use the setting of the show for
the setting of the idea I am explaining. Some examples of possible T.V. shows from previous
years could be The Hills, Jersey Shore, or Catfish. The students could visualize the actors doing
what I am teaching and it becomes more relevant to them because they can connect what I’m
teaching with something that they enjoy on their own time. If in the students mind their favorite
characters are acting out my lesson to them, it could become almost like another episode to the
students and thus they would be more likely to remember what I was teaching than if I was just
to lecture and bore the students. This first possible way to use humor in my class room is based
off of my old business law professor who did something similar to this but with the T.V. show
Chuck, he quickly used the characters names while describing a case study and then reused them
in the test question. This idea is an alteration on that but I believe that because he did that is the
reason why I remember contract law so well.
A second thing I could do would be to use props in my teaching method. I am a
marketing student here at Central Michigan University and I could use props while discussing
the product life cycle lets use as an example. There are four stages in the product life cycle,
introductory, growth, maturity, and decline. I could use a prop such as an Ipod to help the
students understand them and mix some humor into the lesson as well. For the first stage,
introductory, I could describe it and show the students one of the original Ipods. The students
would remember what it was like when the first Ipod came out on the market and would be able

12. to relate with more ease. Then as the lesson continued I would change the Ipods all the way
through the Ipod Touch until the decline stage. At this stage I would explain the stage to them
and then relate it to the Ipod, make the connection between the stage and the product then do
something like throw the Ipod over my should or some other way to show I do not want it
anymore so the students could make that connection as well. Through the use of props and
humor I would hopefully have made a connection between what I am teaching and what the
student already understands and hopefully have made it easier on that student to process the
information.
A third way I could use humor in my class to help students learn would be to have some
of the students do mini theaters. I could give a small instruction to a select number of students
and have them act out what the lesson was about. If the class was a business law class and we
were studying contracts, then I could explain a situation to a few students and ask them to act out
a scene where a contract deal was taking place. This would hopefully make it more relevant to
the students because of just hearing or reading about this kind of situation they would be able to
see their peers interact it. I would also throw some humor into it by making them sign a contract
for something farfetched like a floating zoo in the middle of Lake Michigan so later on a test I
could bring up “Lake Michigan Floating Zoo” in a question and the students could use the
connection they made through the mini play to answer the question.
These were just a few examples of integrating related humor into a college classroom to
try to help the students retain the course material with more ease. This is an easy way to keep
the class interested and could be refined and redeveloped over time through asking the students
what they thought to be helpful and what was not. I have learned what kinds of humor are

13. deemed appropriate and what kinds are not. I also learned how and why some students view
types of humor as inappropriate or not and whether it aids in their learning.