What Role for Developmental Theories in Mathematics Study Programmes in French-Speaking Belgium? An Analysis of the Geometry Curriculum's Aspects, Framed by Van Hiele's Model

One possible way of evaluating set curricula is to examine the consistency of study programmes with students' psycho-cognitive development. Three theories were used to evaluate matching between developmental theories and content proposed in the mathematics programmes (geometry section) for primary and the beginning of secondary education. These were considered in the light of more recent work. Qualitative analysis was performed on the basis of the geometrical thinking model proposed by Van Hiele and this paper focuses on this model. The results obtained can be used to identify gaps where the programmes fail to take adequate account of child development. These results highlight the lack of precision in the wording of programme items, which makes them hard to analyse on the basis of scientific knowledge. The classifications performed revealed instances of lack of coherence that raise doubts about the supposedly progressive nature of the set content.