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Understanding how teachers conceptualize assessment has become increasingly important as education systems worldwide undergo reform. Numerous inventories have been developed to measure teachers’ conceptions of assessment (TCoA), but little is known about how these inventories overlap, diverge, or align theoretically. This study presents a systematic review and thematic synthesis of 26 TCoA inventories published between 2000 and 2025. Our analysis reveals a broad but fragmented landscape of constructs related to assessment purposes, functions and values. Findings reveal seven core categories: five assessment purposes (teaching improvement, student development, student accountability, teacher and school accountability and irrelevance/negativity) and two assessment formats (formal and informal). The findings also highlight conceptual redundancies, terminological inconsistencies and limited theoretical integration across inventories. IMPACT STATEMENT This study identifies conceptual overlap across inventories of teachers’ conceptions of assessment, improving construct clarity and the comparability of assessment belief measures.
Wang et al. (Thu,) studied this question.