HUMOR AND THE RETENTION OF LECTURE MATERIAL BY STUDENT-ATHLETES IN A MENTOR INFORMATION SESSION
Open Access
Author:
Williams, F. Christopher
Graduate Program:
Counselor Education
Degree:
Doctor of Education
Document Type:
Dissertation
Date of Defense:
August 24, 2001
Committee Members:
Edgar Paul Yoder, Committee Member Judith J Goetz, Committee Member Dan Salter, Committee Chair/Co-Chair Keith B Wilson, Committee Member
Keywords:
SESSION HUMOR MATERIAL
Abstract:
This study addressed the use of humor as a means to improve the academic success of college student-athletes. Student-athletes are often mistakenly viewed as the “privileged few” and hence do not deserve to be treated as a typical student. Academically speaking, however, scores for student-athletes and their graduation rates tend to be lower than other students. Humor can have cognitive and physiological abilities that would be useful to student-athletes and individuals who work with them. Humor may also enhance the educational process by helping students
retain lecture material and boosting self-esteem. To determine the effectiveness of humor as a teaching strategy, 38 student-athletes from a Research One, predominately White, NCAA Division-One University participated in a two-hour training session on mentoring. After random assignment, the control group received a strict lecture format. The treatment group received the same material, but with the use of humor (e.g., comics on overheads). Using a pretest-posttest approach, both groups completed a nine- item survey of mentoring knowledge. As
evidenced through key-word selection, a content analysis of
their responses suggested that the humor group retained more
lecture content, thus supporting the hypotheses.
Future research
could explore other uses and types of humor to
assist student-athletes as well as other college
students
