Parent Perceptions in the Screening of Performance in Foreign Language Courses

Abstract

ABSTRACT Parents' perceptions are not commonly used to assist educators in understanding students' foreign language learning problems. Here, a questionnaire designed to measure parents' perceptions of their child's developmental and academic histories, classroom learning characteristics, and previous foreign language learning was administered to 79 parents of children enrolled in first‐year high school foreign language courses. Students were differentiated into low risk, average risk, and high risk groups based on questionnaire results and were administered a battery of native language tests and a foreign language aptitude measure. Final foreign language course grades were also obtained. Results showed overall group differences favoring the low and average risk groups over the high risk group on most items on the questionnaire on all but one of the native language, foreign language aptitude, and cognitive measures, and foreign language grades. Results suggest that parents' perceptions of their children's developmental and academic learning histories may provide helpful screening information to foreign language teachers.