A Study on Humor Styles of Teacher Candidates

Abstract

A teacher should have adaptive humor styles as well as knowledge, skills and attitudes about their profession. Humor styles affect many behaviors; from the relationships that teachers establish with their students to their characteristics. For this reason, this research was carried out to determine the humor styles of teacher candidates. 491 Teacher candidates have participated in this study, who were 3rd and 4th grade students in the faculty of education at 2 universities in Turkey. The researcher used the general survey model for the study. Data were collected using the Humor Styles Questionnaire (HSQ) developed by Martin et al. (2003). Findings showed that teacher candidates with the affiliative humor style had the highest average, those with the aggressive humor style had the lowest average. The averages of those with self-enhancing and self-defeating humor style were moderate. It was interpreted as positive that the average of those with self-enhancing humor style was high, as negative that the average of those with self-defeating humor style was moderate, and as positive the average of those with self-defeating humor style was low.