Language History Questionnaire (LHQ3): An enhanced tool for assessing multilingual experience

Abstract The language history questionnaire (LHQ) is an important tool for assessing the linguistic background and language proficiency of multilinguals or second language learners. Previously we developed a generic LHQ based on the most commonly asked questions in published studies (Li, Sepanski & Zhao, 2006) and provided a web-based interface (LHQ 2.0) that has flexibility in functionality, accuracy in data recording, and privacy for users and data (Li, Zhang, Tsai & Puls, 2014). LHQ3 (version 3) introduces new functions, developed in response to many comments/requests from users. One important improvement is the addition of an automatic scoring system, in that the new interface automatically calculates aggregated scores for language proficiency, language dominance, and language immersion levels. Finally, LHQ3 allows researchers to assign different weights to the modules when calculating the aggregated scores, addressing the issue of different focuses that different researchers put on multilingual speakers’ language usage and background.