Psychometric Instruments for Assessing Mathematical Competencies in Secondary Education: A Systematic Review

Valid assessment of mathematical competencies in secondary education is essential yet insufficiently documented. This systematic review (PRISMA 2020), with protocol procedures documented in Parsifal and deposited in the OSF repository, characterizes and evaluates the psychometric quality of instruments designed, validated, or adapted to measure mathematical competencies in secondary school students. Scopus, Web of Science, and ERIC were searched on 9 December 2025 for studies published between 2015 and 2025. Methodological quality was assessed using 16 criteria adapted from the AERA/APA/NCME Standards (2014) and the COSMIN checklist, applied independently by two reviewers. Given substantial heterogeneity, results were synthesised narratively. Of 833 records identified, 19 studies met the inclusion criteria (N = 13,018 participants; 8 countries). Instruments were predominantly cognitive performance tests (78.9%) grounded in PISA-based or proprietary frameworks. Content validity was universally reported, but convergent validity appeared in only 15.8% of studies, differential item functioning in 10.5%, and measurement invariance in 15.8%. No study achieved high methodological quality; 73.7% were classified as low quality. The evidence base is geographically concentrated (Indonesia, 42.1%) and systematically deficient in external validity and fairness evidence, limiting the cross-contextual applicability of available instruments. Cross-national validation and longitudinal designs are identified as priority directions for future research.