The perceptions of faculty and students concerning the use of humor in nursing education

• Main Author: Shea, Ursula
• Language: ENG
• Published: ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst 1991
• Subjects: Higher education|Nursing
• Online Access: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI9120941

The purpose of this study was to shed light on the perceptions of nursing faculty and students about the use of humor in their nursing programs. All data were gathered from a three part questionnaire which contained 17 questions or statements. The questionnaire was administered to ten (10) nursing faculty and one-hundred and sixty (160) nursing students. Respondents were drawn from five randomly selected schools of nursing in Central Massachusetts. All schools were either associate degree or baccalaureate levels, admitting generic students as well as registered nurses and licensed practical nurses who had returned to school to earn a degree. Analysis of the data was obtained through the Mann Whitney U and Kruskal Wallis tests which revealed that significant differences (p $<$ 0.05) existed between the perceptions of the nursing faculty and their respective students. The results of the study indicate that faculty and students have similar perceptions of the use of humor in many situations. However, significant differences were determined between their perceptions regarding the extent of the use of humor in classrooms, clinical settings, and the appropriateness of the use of humor in a profession. Recommendations for further study include expanding the participation to a larger sample population, defining terms and measurements more meticulously, and implementing the use of planned humor in the classroom and clinical settings. The findings in this study are consistent with the existing literature that suggests that humor is multifunctional and fundamental in both education and health care.