The Use of Teacher's Joke Increases Students’ Involvement inside Classroom

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to identify the type of joke and the frequency of joke s used inside the classroom. In addition, studies have also been conducted to examine the involvement of students when element of joke is applied in the classroom and determine the relationship between joke frequency and students’ involvement. This study is a quantitative type of survey. The instrument used is a set of four parts questionnaire. The populations studied involved secondary school teachers in Muallim District while the samples studied was selected using simple random sampling. The number of samples involved is 269 people. The findings show that the majority of teachers in Muallim District use jokes while teaching in the classroom. Among the jokes applied are jests, cynics, funny face expressions and funny stories (n = 92, Percentage = 34.20%). However, the joke frequency inside the classroom is moderate (n = 164, Percentage = 61.00%). Furthermore, the findings show that the use of joke element can make students to feel more at ease with the teacher when speaking or interacting (n = 115, Percentage = 38.50%). Correlation analysis indicated that there was a link between frequency of joke used and student’s involvement when joke was applied in the classroom (r = 0.42, p <0.05). It can be concluded that the application of joke element is commendable inside the classroom, however, the joke frequency needs to be controlled as it can disrupt the students focus on learning.