Development of attitude towards humour in elementary school 4th-8th graders

The main purpose of the study is to put forth the effect of cognitive levels of students? in elementary schools on their interest in and preference for humour by determining their attitudes to humour alongside the effects of culture and environment. Answers have been sought to questions such as: How do elementary school students develop their attitudes towards humour? What shapes their attitudes to and interest in humour? In what way do their attitudes and interests vary? In line with the aim, problem and goals of the study, a fifteen-item Personal Information Form, a thirty-two-item Scale of Attitudes to Humour, six jokes that were separately chosen for each grade as well as a four-question Academic Success Test pertaining to the jokes, and a fourquestion Test of Interest in Humour have been applied to the specified work group. Another aim of the study was to test the validity and reliability of the Scale of Attitudes to Humour, which was specifically designed for the current study, with elementary school students. The scale was given to a total of 100 students ?56 of whom were girls and 44 of whom were boys ? (4th-8th graders) aged 9-15 ( X= 11,67). The research data were analyzed by means of the SPSS (the Statistics Package for Social Sciences) in terms of frequency, percentage distribution, etc. The Cronbach alpha value ( ) (the reliability coefficient) was found to be .84. The results indicated that the Scale of viiAttitudes to Humour is a valid and reliable tool of measurement for studies to be conducted with elementary school students. The Test of Interest in Humour was used to discover the group?s interests in humour and their preferences for humour according to age. In addition, the students were asked to draw caricatures about the jokes they read and the caricatures were assessed and interpreted through the Form of Criteria for Examination of Caricatures. The students (4th-8th graders) of the İhsan Şerif Elementary School, Hasköy Elementary School and Cemal Artüz Elementary School in Beyoğlu ? İstanbul ? which were chosen to be the sampling of the study were also specified as the experimental group. As a result of the study, the educational level of the mothers, environment, culture, students? age and their level of readiness were seen to have an impact on the development of their sense of humour. It has been found that the male students have more positive attitudes towards humour than the female students and that they use more humour in daily life. The results indicate that there is an appreciable increase in the level of humour scores as the grades go up. A significant difference has also been found in the humour scores according to sex in favour of the boys. Culture has been found to be effective in the formation of students? interest in and preference for humour. It has been observed that students? preferences are for the Blacksea, fable, patient-doctor (mad people) kind of jokes. The Blacksea jokes have been found to be more popular than the Hodja Nasreddin jokes. The Blacksea jokes have been shown to be the most popular, followed by the fables and the Bektashi jokes. viiiIt has also been found that more caricatures were drawn about the same type of jokes. Differences have been observed between the caricatures drawn by the students who are in the concrete operations stage and those in the abstract operations stage. These differences have been analyzed and interpreted according to the criteria in the Form of Examination of Jokes. The current study, which is an interdisciplinary work, is important in that it is an original contribution to the literature. Keywords: Humour, Scale of Attitudes to Humour, Children and Language Acquisition, Caricature, Joke.