Effects of jocular instructional methods on attitudes, anxiety, and achievement in statistics courses

This investigation examines the effects of using humor as a systematic teaching strategy to improve attitudes, reduce anxiety, and increase acheivement in introductory undergraduate and graduate statistics courses. A single-sample pretest-posttest design was employed to measure changes in attitudes and anxiety and their relationships to achievement levels. Three incidental samples of 142 students were selected to test the humorous instructional intervention. Statistically significant t-ratios in the predicted directions and practically significant effect sizes were found for attitudes toward course content and anxiety for all classes. These affective characteristics also had moderate correlations with composite achievement.