Student intellectual stimulation, interest, and engagement within the college classroom is of great importance when attempting to heighten learning, both cognitively and affectively. Although scholars have examined predictors of student interest and engagement within the classroom setting, it has yet to be examined in correlation with an instructor’s use of humor. More specifically, student intellectual stimulation is rarely studied on its own, especially in relation to an instructor’s humor orientation. This study seeks to determine if an instructors humor orientation acts a predictor of student intellectual stimulation, engagement, and interest within the college classroom setting. This study obtained data from a sample of 337 full-time college students at two Northern California Universities. Data was collected through a self-administered paper and pencil questionnaire. Six sections of the questionnaire subsequently measured students’ perceptions of an instructor’s humor orientation, student intellectual stimulation, student interest, student engagement, demographic information on the participant, as well as the instructor that they were reporting on. The Humor Orientation scale was used to measure the dimensions of the instructor’s humor use within the classroom. The Student Intellectual Stimulation Scale (SISS) was used to examine the instructors use of intellectual stimulation within the classroom. Last, the student Interest and Engagement scales were utilized to measure the how interested and engaged students were within the reported course. This study found a statistically significant positive relationship amongst an instructors use of humor orientation and their ability to intellectually stimulate, engage, and interest students within the course. More specifically, an instructors use of humor within the classroom acted as a predictor to students being more intellectually stimulated, interested, and engaged within that given course. Furthermore, this study is of significance because it suggests that an instructor that uses humor within the classroom setting, will not only help intellectually stimulate their students, but they will also help enhance their interest, and engagement within the course, which can possibly lead to heightened cognitive and affective learning. Thus, instructors that are perceived to be funny within their respective course, are more likely to have students that are intellectually stimulated, interested, and engaged which enhances learning.

The majority of instructional communication literature has historically focused on the positive outcomes of incorporating humor into the classroom. However, despite the clearly documented instructional benefits of humorous communication, the literature tends to focus solely on instructor-enacted humor. However, humor is not a homogenous concept; therefore, it is imperative to examine it from a number of contexts, including student-enacted humor. Although the Instructional Humor Processing Theory (IHPT) has made a number of theoretical advances in exploring humorous communication in the classroom, it still lacks adequate explanatory power, particularly when examining student-enacted humor. Thus, four expansions to IHPT are proposed: to incorporate (a) the interpersonal attraction experienced toward the sender, (b) the humor orientation of the receiver, (c) the enacted humor style of the sender, and (d) the receiver’s perception of the classroom climate. Results indicate that the aforementioned expansions are theoretically pertinent to examining student-student humorous communication and warrant future research for inclusion to IHPT. The study also discovered sex differences regarding the message sender, along with interaction effects between the sex of the sender and receiver. Theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed, and directions for future research are provided.

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