A systematic scoping review of competency-based assessment models in higher education: evolution, international comparisons and implications for emerging universities

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to systematically scope review competency-based assessment (CBA) models in higher education, focusing on their evolution, international variations and implications for emerging universities. Design/methodology/approach The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews guidelines were followed to analyse the 34 studies published between 2003 and 2026. Findings The review demonstrates a progression from early behavioural and task-focused models (Generation I) to outcome and mastery-focused approaches (Generation II, which comprises the majority of the included studies, 67.6%) to more recent predictive, adaptive and digitally enabled frameworks (Generation III), alongside a smaller number of studies with characteristics that span adjacent generations. International comparisons show significant variation in policy drivers, institutional autonomy and alignment with national qualification frameworks. A three-faceted classification framework – including evolutionary generations, geographic context and disciplinary streams – suggests that greenfield universities in emerging economies may be well positioned to adopt Generation III models directly, an inference drawn from adoption patterns in the literature rather than from comparative outcome evidence. Research limitations/implications Screening and data extraction were done by a single reviewer, which could introduce interpretive bias. The corpus of 34 studies is geographically skewed towards North America and Europe (67.6%), limiting the generalisability of findings to other regional contexts. The three-generation framework is theoretical and needs to be empirically validated before applying it to the institutions. Practical implications The study identifies critical challenges regarding standardisation, faculty preparedness and long-term evaluation and offers a practical roadmap for policymakers and institutional leaders who aim to design equitable, scalable and forward-looking assessment systems. Originality/value This is one of the first scoping reviews, to the best of the author’s knowledge, to combine evolutionary generation, geographic context and disciplinary stream into one analytical lens. The framework provides a systematic, evidence-based foundation for sequencing CBA implementation decisions in greenfield institutions, while explicitly recognising the associative (rather than causal) nature of the evidence supporting Generation III superiority and the need for additional empirical validation.