An examination of the content of high school teachers' humor in the classroom and the development of an inductively derived taxonomy of classroom humor

This study presents an examination of high school teachers’ humor in the classroom and an inductively derived taxonomy of teacher humor. High school teachers completed a questionnaire designed to assess their frequency of humor use in the classroom, their perceptions of the appropriateness of several different kinds of classroom humor, and their reasons for using humor in the classroom. Also, participants’ descriptions of their last use of classroom humor were coded to create a typology. Results indicated that high school teachers generally use less humor than college teachers, perceive college teacher humor as appropriate, and use humor as a learning facilitator rather than a learning strategy. In addition, a 20‐item classification scheme of teacher humor is presented that is more reflective of the content of classroom humor than previously developed typologies.