Toward an overarching framework for systematizing research perspectives on diagnostic thinking and practice

Assessing students’ learning processes and products is considered a core requirement of effective teaching. As such, it is an object of research in several disciplines and research areas. To structure the various corresponding research perspectives and provide a broader, yet still systematic view of the field, we propose an overarching framework that allows for systematizing foci of interest, goals, methodologies, and theoretical premises as four integral aspects of conducting research in this area. We demonstrate the benefits of the overarching framework by using it as a tool to analyze and systematize previous research from four different research perspectives. Based on this framework, we discuss the strengths and limitations of existing studies and, in particular, highlight theoretical premises that are rarely explicitly addressed but become more obvious by using the overarching framework. In addition, we provide directions for future research by drawing connections within and between research perspectives. Our analyses illustrate how the overarching framework can provide a foundation for research synthesis and inform future studies.