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Project-Based Assessment (PBA) is an integrated assessment paradigm widely applied in STEM and other interdisciplinary fields. It holds significant potential for fostering students’ higher-order thinking skills and enhancing their comprehensive abilities. However, research in this field remains fragmented and lacks a systematic synthesis. This study addresses this gap by conducting a scoping review of 75 articles aiming to elucidate core concepts, diagnose implementation practices, and provide strategic guidance for future development. The synthesis revealed that PBA is a comprehensive assessment paradigm grounded in constructivism, which integrates multidimensional assessment functions based on authentic problems and process-oriented assessment. Essentially, PBA is positioned as a learning-centered assessment. The findings indicated that PBA is predominantly implemented in higher education and applied disciplines, primarily targeting higher-order cognitive objectives through mixed-method assessment tools. While PBA demonstrates a positive trend in fostering learner engagement, its effectiveness is often hindered by heavy implementation burdens and concerns regarding assessment reliability. Furthermore, several critical deficiencies were identified, including a teacher-centric power structure, the absence of initial assessment phases, and insufficient iterative improvement. Consequently, to enable the effective implementation of PBA, future efforts should focus on reconstructing evidence frameworks, redefining teacher roles, and refining practice models.
Huang et al. (Mon,) studied this question.