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Humor is a pedagogical method that can be used for engaging students in the exciting world of statistics and for fostering concept development. Although typical statistics textbooks contain little or no humor, relevant humor is readily available from other sources. Thus, it is up to statistics instructors to find humor to use in their teaching. The main objective of this article is to acquaint individuals with the many sources of humor as well as how they can be used in the classroom to develop deeper conceptual understanding. Humor was acquired from numerous sources (e.g., books and magazines, the Internet, e-mail request of statisticians, developed by former students). This article consists of specific examples of humor for 14 major topics and their underlying concepts. Planned strategies in which we use humor include (a) opening each class with a humorous piece related to a concept just taught or to be taught in that class and (b) occasionally presenting students with a humorous piece and having them describe the related concept, either verbally or in a written assignment (to assess concept knowledge). Unplanned humor is also used as necessary (e.g., to lighten up the class, to assess a concept that seems to be unclear, as an attention grabber). Our experiences with humor have shown it to minimize statistics anxiety, motivate students, deepen conceptual understanding, and engage students.
Lomax et al. (2002) studied this question.