EXPLORING THE USE OF HUMOR IN ENHANCING PHYSICS EDUCATION AND ASSESSMENT

Physics is perceived as a course which students fear. This fear or anxiety is heightened even more in a testing situation in which the scores students receive have the most tangible impact on their academic career. Additionally, added anxiety and fear can often prohibit students from performing their best. As a potential answer to this problem, a comparison of means two sided t-test was used to determine if humorous test items made a statistically significant difference in improving test scores compared to identical tests with no humorous entries. In addition a questionnaire was given to determine the students perceptions of humor benefiting them in a testing situation. In all, four experiments were performed, three in the physics class and one in an introductory algebr