Teachers may use humor while teaching, and likely combine different styles, such as humor related to course content, humor unrelated to course content, self-disparaging humor, or other-disparaging humor. However, evidence supporting a four-group combination in regard to teacher humor is equivocal considering that past studies found three and four groups. This study is based on responses of a sample of primary and secondary school students to the Teacher Humor Scale and pursued two aims: 1) to identify different humor profiles among teachers; and 2) to examine the associations between these profiles and student school belonging, well-being, and social withdrawal. The 395 participating students (107 boys; 278 girls) were recruited from twelve elementary and six high schools in the province of Quebec (Canada), and they were aged between 10 and 17 years-old (Mage = 14.11). Latent profile analysis identified five groups: (1) high humor (10.4%), (2) low humor (10.1%), (3) self-disparaging humor (14.2%), (4) unrelated humor (12.4%), and (5) average humor (52.9%). The results also indicated that some profiles (e.g., high use of humor) were more effective than others in supporting students’ positive emotional and adaptive outcomes.

Authors: Jérôme St-Amand, Jonathan Smith

Published in: Canada International Conference on Education, 2023

• Date of Conference: 26-28 June, 2023
• DOI: 10.20533/CICE.2023.0018
• Electronic ISBN: 978-1-913572-58-7
• Conference Location: Residence and Conference Centre, Toronto, Canada