Join us on Bluesky for #LTHEchat on Wednesday 18th March at 8pm GMT with guest Hannah Robinson to discuss the Use of Humour in Higher Education Teaching.

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Have you ever found yourself making a joke or laughing at yourself during your lectures? Research evidence shows most academics report that they use humour with their students. The use of humour in education has been reported to effect different areas of students’ educational experiences such as their wellbeing, the classroom environment, relationships, and learning outcomes. 

Despite possibly seeming straightforward, humour is much more complex than a single category. Research into humour in education has identified humour styles which could be linked to different outcomes on students’ educational experiences and educators’ wellbeing. 

Our research has built on this understanding. A 24-item Higher Education Humour Styles Questionnaire (24-HEHSQ) was developed which identified eight humour styles used by academics: course-related, course-unrelated, festive, affiliative, enhancing, self-defeating, sarcastic, and personal characteristic humour. Although humour has distinct humour styles, these are not used in isolation. When using humour, in education or otherwise, people will often use a combination of these different styles. 

Course-related and Course-unrelated humour

If you make jokes in your teaching, are they used to support your students learning? Or are they used to lighten the mood and make students laugh? This distinction between these uses of humour is the difference between course-related and course-unrelated humour. 

If you are using humour related to your teaching or the module content, then you are using course-related humour. On the other hand, if there is no link to learning or academic skills then it is course-unrelated humour. Course-related humour is suggested to support learning and understanding, whereas course-unrelated humour may lead to confusion over what students should be learning. 

Festive Humour 

Have you ever played an April Fools’ prank on your students? Or had them play one on you? This is a common example of festive humour, which refers to humour used related to holidays and special occasions such as April Fools’, Christmas, or birthdays. In academic subjects where holidays or special occasions are taught, course-related festive humour could also be used to explain key ideas to students. 

Affiliative Humour

When you use humour, is it mostly positive or negative? Any positive uses of humour are defined as affiliative humour. It incorporates humour such as dad jokes, wit, and banter. This could be to improve relationships, make others laugh, or to create a positive environment. 

Enhancing Humour

When you or your students are stressed or overwhelmed, have you used humour to lighten the mood? This is an example of enhancing humour. In previous definitions this humour style was defined as self-enhancing, referring only to humour to improve an individual’s own wellbeing. But in an educational environment humour is found to be used to improve students’ wellbeing too. 

Self-defeating Humour

Have you ever made a mistake or error and used humour to handle it? If so, you were using self-defeating humour. This style involves using humour at your own expense, laughing at your own flaws or mistakes. Some studies suggest this humour style could be viewed as an unproductive use of time by students. 

Sarcastic Humour 

This humour style is one I find myself using in my own teaching, but is also frequently reported by educators across academic levels. Sarcastic humour refers to light-hearted teasing, sarcasm, and banter. 

This is the humour style with the most mixed findings in the literature with some students responding positively due to perceiving it as a little bit different and interesting. In contrast, some students describe sarcasm as being inappropriate for educators to use. The mixed reports from students suggest the nuances of how sarcastic humour is used and individual student humour preferences, could dictate how positively it is received. 

Personal Characteristic Humour

Have you ever used stereotypes to explain a concept using humour? If so, this would be an example of personal characteristic humour. This humour style involves using humour with topics relating to an individual such as stereotypes, gender, ethnicity, or sexuality. This style has limited inclusion in research, as it was adapted from aggressive humour. 

This humour style can be viewed as a negative or harmful humour style due to it including protected characteristics. In the literature students have reported feeling offended from this use of humour. However, when used correctly it could have positive outcomes by being used to spread awareness of important issues.  

Current Research

The ways that humour is used is becoming more understood in the literature. Despite this there is still very little discussion of humour in educational institutions or support for the integration of humour into teaching. As there are mixed outcomes reported on students’ experiences, it is important that educators have the tools and resources available to better understand humour and how it can be used. My current research is currently piloting a humour toolkit with academics teaching in higher education in the UK. This toolkit was co-created with academics to support the reflective use of humour. It includes informational videos on humour, reflections from students, scales to identify humour styles and preferences, and activities to integrate into learning or use to reflect on humour use. 

Speaker Bio

Hannah Robinson is a PhD researcher at University of Staffordshire, and Psychological Experimental Officer at Arden University. Her research area focuses on humour use in an educational environment.