NERA 2006

Use of Cartoons to Enhance Memory of Instructional Material: Reliability of Rho-Bustness

Asil Ali Özdoğru and Robert F. McMorris

We previously studied the inclusion of humor in instructional material. Was the inclusion beneficial? Yes and no. How do you operationalize “beneficial”? We had selected passages from a psychology text by Baron’s introductory Psychology textbook. Students studied six passages, each on a different topic, three topics each with a cartoon and three without. Two forms of the instructional material allowed a true experiment. Students completed a sense-of-humor measure, a questionnaire, and a multiple-choice achievement test on the six passages. Based on the responses to the brief questionnaire, the students supported the use of cartoons. Based on the responses to the multiple-choice items, however, any impact of the humor was not obvious. There are many reasons why we would suspect that humor would be an assist in instruction. This will be presented.

Keywords: Humor, sense of humor, cartoons, methodology

Citation: Özdoğru, A. A., & McMorris, R. F. (2006, October). Use of cartoons to enhance memory of instructional material: Reliability of rho-bustness. Paper presented at the 37th annual conference of the Northeastern Educational Research Association, Kerhonkson, NY, USA.