Humor in university teaching: role of teachers' achievement goals and self-efficacy for their use of content-related humor

Teachers' content-related humor matters for the quality of higher education. However, little is known about the circumstances under which teachers use it. From a socio-cognitive perspective, teachers' achievement goals and self-efficacy appear to be relevant personal precursors. We investigated their effects on content-related humor in two studies. In Study 1, 229 teachers (79 female; 159 PhDs; 33 full professors) participated with 387 courses while 10,296 students assessed the humor in these courses. Study 2 used a similar design for 45 teachers (20 female; 27 PhDs, 9 full professors), 116 course sessions, and 2,333 student assessments. Three-level-analyses pointed to substantial variance in students' assessments of content-related humor which could be attributed to differences between courses/sessions within teachers (ICC = .12-.13) and between teachers themselves (ICC = .21). In both studies, performance (appearance component) avoidance goals emerged as negative predictors, and relational goals and self-efficacy as positive predictors of content-related humor, highlighting the relevance of instructors' motivations for the use of instructional humor.