2019 National Assessment of Mathematics in the First Grade of Secondary Education in Flanders (B-stream)

In 2019 a national assessment was carried out, which was commissioned by the Flemish government, to assess the extent to which students have achieved the developmental goals for mathematics at the end of the first grade of secondary education (B-stream). This assessment is a reiteration of the previous assessment on mathematics conducted in 2008. Data were collected through 14 written tests covering 8 domains: (1) number sense and main operations, (2) addition and subtraction of fractions, (3) money and functional arithmetic, (4) geometry, (5) information acquisition and processing, (6) measuring, (7) operations with a pocket calculator and (8) percentages with a pocket calculator. A representative sample of 3615 students from 117 Flemish secondary schools participated. Tests were supplemented with background questionnaires for students, parents and mathematics teachers. The questionnaires collected, among other things, information on the general background characteristics of students and their families, students' and parents' attitudes, classroom practices, and teachers' didactic approaches. The response rates to these questionnaires were 93% for the students and 78% for the parents. Teachers were able to complete part of the questionnaire online, for which the response rate was 90%. For the paper part, the response rate was 82%.