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EFL students’ learning and their perceptions of teacher humor: A mixed methods study

Exploring EFL students’ perceptions of teacher humor, humor appropriateness, and humor homophily as predictors of their cognitive learning, affective learning, and l2 achievement

ORCiD logo with link | Bu-Ali Sina UniversityHamedan
 | Bu-Ali Sina UniversityHamedan
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Abstract
Humor has been reported to be beneficial for language learning. However, limited research has explored how different aspects of teacher humor — such as humor appropriateness and humor homophily — function together to influence various learning outcomes, particularly from the students’ perspective. Most previous studies have focused on the general effects of humor, leaving the nuanced, learner-centered view underexplored. The present study employed a mixed methods sequential explanatory design to explore students’ perceptions of teacher humor, humor appropriateness, and humor homophily as potential predictors of their cognitive learning, affective learning, and L2 achievement. Convenience sampling was used to recruit 298 EFL learners nationwide. Participants completed five questionnaires, and structured interviews were conducted with 23 students to expand the results. The quantitative data were analyzed using multiple regression and path analysis. Further, thematic analysis with the aid of NVivo 12 software was utilized for analyzing the qualitative data. The results indicated that humor homophily was the strongest predictor of affective learning. Teacher humor, humor appropriateness, and humor homophily moderately predicted affective learning but had weaker predictive power for cognitive learning and L2 achievement. However, the concurrent use of the different types of humor demonstrated higher direct effects on L2 achievement. Moreover, the qualitative findings confirmed the quantitative results. By focusing on students’ perceptions, this study addresses a significant gap in the literature and provides context-specific insights into how humor can be strategically employed to support emotional engagement and language learning. These results could have significant implications for educators globally, including different stakeholders, such as teachers, students, teacher trainers, managers, and supervisors of language institutes, encouraging them to use humor strategically to foster positive learning environments and support language learning outcomes.
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Literature review
  • Methodology
    • Participants
    • Instruments
      • Humor assessment instrument
      • Instructor humor scale
      • Cognitive learning measure
      • Revised affective learning measure
      • Structured interview
      • L2 Achievement measure
    • Data collection procedure
    • Data analysis
  • Results
    • Quantitative results
      • Research question one
      • Research question two
    • Qualitative results
      • Research question three
  • Discussion
    • Quantitative findings
      • Research question one
        • Predictive powers of teacher humor for cognitive learning, affective learning, and L2 achievement
        • Predictive powers of humor appropriateness for cognitive learning, affective learning, and L2 achievement
        • Predictive powers of humor homophily for cognitive learning, affective learning, and L2 achievement
      • A valid model of interrelationships among variables
    • Qualitative findings
      • Students’ perceptions of teacher humor, humor appropriateness, and humor homophily
    • Triangulation of results and findings
  • Conclusion and implications
  • Author queries
  • References
References (91)
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