Assessment plays a crucial role in student learning in higher education. Until rather recently, the role of assessment in relation to inclusion has been unexplored. In this study, we conduct a research synthesis of 42 studies published between 2010 and 2022, including 868 student participants, to map the assessment experiences of students with disabilities in higher education. Specifically, we conduct a meta-ethnographic review to synthesise qualitative studies and capture the participants' lived experiences of assessment. Our analysis considers how these experiences reflect both inclusion and exclusion. We theorise these elusive terms through the ideas of access and participation. Most of the studies considered the students' imminent physical, perceptual and social access to assessment, such as in the cases of inaccessible examination halls or digital assessment systems. A smaller subset of the studies considered inclusion/exclusion as a matter of students’ social participation as fully accepted members of academia. In these studies, assessment was described as providing the students with opportunities to belong to academia, whereas experiences of exclusion portrayed assessment as a mechanism for social segregation and discrimination. Overall, our review shows that assessment is a primary barrier to the inclusion of students with disabilities in higher education. We propose that the predominant discourse of inclusion in assessment needs to widen from considering immediate access to assessment into considering how assessment regulates the full participation of diverse students in higher education. We discuss the implications of inaccessible assessment for all students and suggest that, ultimately, both access and participation are matters of student identity. Our review has important practical implications for the design of inclusive assessment in the current higher education contexts in which student cohorts are becoming increasingly diverse.

评估在高等教育中学生的学习中发挥着至关重要的作用。直到最近，评估在包容性方面的作用尚未得到探讨。在这项研究中，我们对 2010 年至 2022 年间发表的 42 项研究（包括 868 名学生参与者）进行了研究综合，以绘制残疾学生在高等教育中的评估经历。具体来说，我们进行元人种学审查来综合定性研究并捕捉参与者的想法评估的生活经验。我们的分析考虑了这些经历如何反映包容性和排斥性。我们通过访问和参与的想法对​​这些难以捉摸的术语进行理论化。大多数研究都考虑了学生的兴趣。即将在身体、感知和社会方面获得评估，例如在无法进入考场​​或数字评估系统的情况下。一小部分研究认为包容/排除是学生作为学术界完全接受的成员参与社会的问题。在这些研究中，评估被描述为为学生提供加入学术界的机会，而排斥的经历则将评估描述为社会隔离和歧视的机制。总体而言，我们的审查表明，评估是残疾学生接受高等教育的主要障碍。我们建议，纳入评估的主要讨论需要从考虑立即接受评估扩大到考虑评估如何规范多元化学生对高等教育的充分参与。我们讨论了无法获得评估对所有学生的影响，并建议最终，获得和参与都是学生身份的问题。在当前学生群体日益多样化的高等教育背景下，我们的审查对于包容性评估的设计具有重要的实际意义。