Relationship between college teachers' use of humor in the classroom and students' evaluations of their teachers

In a field study, 70 college students unobtrusively tape-recorded 1 class presentation and evaluated the teacher as to appeal, competence, delivery, and teaching effectiveness. The presentations were content analyzed to identify key features relating to humor usage. Following a factor analysis of aspects of evaluation, correlation coefficients were computed between the teachers' frequency of use of the various types of humor and students' evaluations of their professors. Results indicate that for male teachers, usage of humor was generally positively related to appeal, delivery, and teaching effectiveness. For female teachers, only the use of hostile humor was associated with enhanced appeal. In contrast, female teachers' usage of some nonhostile forms of humor was associated with loss of appeal. (36 ref)