Abstract:
Humour is considered as involving the communication of multiple incongruous
meanings that in some manner evoke amusement. Regarding pedagogy, research has
identified significant differences in humour use depending on teaching experience,
where experienced professors utilise humour with more frequency and relevance than
novice teaching assistants. Thus, examining studentperspectives on humour use in
terms of seniority and accompanying factors such as age, experience, and expertise
would aid Higher Education development, especially in a country like Sri Lanka
where education is regarded as a fairly formal, hierarchical process. Extending
Instructional Humour Processing Theory, this study investigated student views on
pedagogical humour in relation to the lecturer’s age, seniority, experience, and
expertise. A sample of 53 students from the Department of English, University of
Colombo, answered a questionnaire regarding their attitudes towards the use of
humour in courses followed at all Departments of the Faculty of Arts. Confirming the
research hypotheses, while many students (n=25:47%), regardless of sociocultural
background, viewed senior faculty as more adept at using humour in teaching than
juniors, they were more comfortable reciprocating humour (n=17:32%) when the
lecturer was relatively junior and closer to them in age. However, students
additionally regarded the lecturer’s personality, familiarity with the lecturer, class size
and dynamics, and their own seniority in the system, as affecting their perceptions.
While all respondents unreservedly endorsed the use of positive pedagogical humour,
negative humour in terms of derisive jokes targeted at particular individuals/ groups,
irrelevant humour, and prolonged humour to the point of distraction, were criticised.
The study offers recommendations for junior faculty to learn strategic employment of
instructional humour from senior colleagues, and for senior faculty to improve the
effectiveness of their own classroom humour. Such steps would put a powerful
pedagogical tool to good use, contributing towards enhancing the tertiary educational
experience for teacher and learner alike.
