The language history questionnaire (LHQ) is an important tool for assessing the linguistic background of bilinguals or second language learners and for generating self-reported proficiency in multiple languages. Previously we developed a generic LHQ based on the most commonly asked questions in published studies (Li, Sepanski & Zhao, 2006) and provided researchers with 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, 2013). Since the publication of LHQ, hundreds of researchers have used it for their studies. These researchers have also provided many comments/requests/inquires for potentially new functions of the LHQ. The current version (LHQ 3.0) reflects our efforts to address some of the needs of the researchers. Among the many improvements we made to the web-based tool, the most important one is the addition of an aggregate score function, which can automatically calculate aggregated scores for a participants' second language proficiency level based on their inputs to several relevant LHQ questions. Such a score will help the researchers get a rough estimation/classification of different types of bilingual speakers. Furthermore, different researchers may be focused on different aspects and dimensions of a second language learner's language background. Therefore, LHQ 3.0 also provides researchers with the flexibility to assign different weights to different modules when calculating the aggregated score.
Please cite the reference "Li, P., Zhang, F., Yu, A., & Zhao, X. (2020). Language History Questionnaire (LHQ3): An enhanced tool for assessing multilingual experience. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 23(5), 938-944." in any publications that report data based on LHQ 3.0.
If you need the questionnaires in PDF version, please download them from this Link.
If you have any questions or need further information about the questionnaire, please contact Zhexiao Guo or Ping Li. We welcome your feedback, comments, and suggestions.