Predicting success in college undergraduate modern foreign language courses

Abstract

Since the mid-1950's several attempts have been made in efforts to develop prognostic tests for the prediction of success in foreign language learning situations. Of the instruments developed to date, none, however, is able to boast of high predictive validity. Existing tests differ both in the measurement of numerous different variables thought to be critical to foreign language learning and in the criterion measures used to evaluate student performance; therefore, a comparison of these tests is difficult, if not impossible. The two nationally standardized tests now in use are the Pimsleur Language Aptitude Battery (PLAB, Pimsleur, 1966) for junior and senior high students and the Modern Language Aptitude Test (MLAT, Carroll and Sapon, 1959) for high school, college, and adult students. The predictive power of each of these batteries is relatively low, with the PLAB achieving 36% of the variance in foreign language learning and the MLAT achieving 20%. ...