Laughing all the way to Tokyo

In 2006 I was one of the speakers at the 12th Annual, First Canadian
Humor Conference. This experience reminded me of the Dr. Fox lecture
story.

In the early 70’s, Psychology Today Magazine was involved in the Dr. Fox
lectures. They may have been responsible or just reported them, but it was
something I will never never forget.

Following this I have an explanation of the study; however, the short version is that a good comedian, giving a bad lecture, is perceived as better than an actual lecturer giving actual content in a “normal” dry presentation..

The Dr. Fox effect is a correlation observed between teacher expressiveness, content coverage and student evaluation and student achievement. The phenomenon was named after the pseudonymous Dr. Myron L. Fox, the actor who was used to conduct the lectures in the first study of this phenomenon.

In the observation, two equivalent groups of students are given lectures varying in content coverage. After the lecture, students are required to evaluate the teacher on effectiveness. A test is also taken to measure the student achievement.
It is observed that student achievement is higher for higher content-coverage. However students are observed to rate high content-coverage lectures as better than low-coverage lectures only under conditions of low expressiveness. Under conditions of high expressiveness, no correlation is observed.

This lack of correspondence between content-coverage and ratings under conditions of high expressiveness is known as the Dr Fox Effect.
In a recent critique of student evaluations of teaching, professor of law Deborah Merritt summarized the Dr. Fox Effect as it was observed in the first experiments: "The experimenters created a meaningless lecture on 'Mathematical Game Theory as Applied to Physician Education,' and coached Fox to deliver it 'with an excessive use of double talk, neologisms, non sequiturs, and contradictory statements.' At the same time, the researchers encouraged Fox to adopt a lively demeanor, convey warmth toward his audience, and intersperse his nonsensical comments with humor. ... Fox fooled not just one, but three separate audiences of professional and graduate students. Despite the emptiness of his lecture, fifty-five psychiatrists, psychologists, educators, graduate students, and other professionals produced evaluations of Dr. Fox that were overwhelmingly positive. ... The disturbing feature of the Dr. Fox study, as the experimenters noted, is that Fox’s nonverbal behaviors so completely masked a meaningless, jargon-filled, and confused presentation.”

THE DOCTOR FOX LECTURE: A PARADIGM OF EDUCATIONAL SEDUCTIONDonald H. Naftulin, M.D., John E. Ware, Jr., and Frank A. DonnellyJournal of Medical Education, vol. 48, July 1973, p. 630-635 can be found at:

http://www.er.uqam.ca/nobel/r30034/PSY4180/Pages/Naftulin.html

June 3, 2009

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's bureaucrats may have little to laugh about these days, given opposition charges of misspent tax money, but that has not stopped one ministry offering its officials a unique form of training -- as stand-up comics.
More than 100 transport ministry officials in their 20s got tips this week from professional comedians as part of training in communication skills.
"By experiencing comedy routines, we hope they can learn more about how to speak to clients and how to manage their staff as they begin to have more management responsibility," said Atsuya Kawada, deputy director of the ministry's personnel division.
The training coincides with attacks by the main opposition Democratic Party, eyeing victory in a looming election, on what the party calls wasteful public spending due to decades of policy collusion between bureaucrats and ruling party lawmakers.
Kawada said the approach was better than just listening to lectures for young officials, who are often tired from long working hours.
"We also hope this training will soften the stiff image of bureaucrats”.