Applying Instructor Communication Behaviors and Learning Outcomes to the Pediatrician-Parent Context

To examine instructional communication behaviors in the medical context and to explore the role of health literacy in pediatrician-parent relationships, the current study assessed parents’ (N = 299) perceptions of their pediatricians’ nonverbal immediacy, clarity, and verbal receptivity and their own communication satisfaction, affective learning, and cognitive learning. Results demonstrated that when pediatricians are nonverbally immediate, clear, and verbally receptive, parents report that they are satisfied with their pediatricians’ communication, affectively predisposed toward their pediatricians, and able to recall their pediatricians’ medical directives. Further, health literacy moderates the relationships between pediatricians’ behaviors and parent outcomes such that for parents with low health literacy, pediatricians’ use of nonverbal immediacy and verbal receptivity was related to higher affective and cognitive learning.