<![CDATA[Background: Exit exams in higher education are crucial for certifying student competency and ensuring academic quality. However, growing attention has been directed toward gender-related disparities in exam performance, perceptions, and outcomes, raising concerns about fairness and equity in assessment practices. Objective: This systematic review aims to explore how gender influences students’ experiences with exit exams in higher education, focusing on performance, perception, and broader implications for equity and quality assurance. Method: Using the PRISMA framework, a comprehensive search was conducted across multiple academic databases. From an initial pool of 587 articles, 32 studies published between 1994 and 2024 were selected based on predefined inclusion criteria. Data extraction focused on study objectives, methodologies, contexts, and gender-specific findings. Result: The findings reveal that while female students often achieve performance levels equal to or higher than their male peers, they report elevated levels of test anxiety and face systemic biases that affect their exam experiences. Sociocultural norms, exam design, and institutional policies significantly contribute to these disparities. Conclusion: Gender differences in exit exam experiences underscore the need for inclusive and equitable assessment systems. Addressing these disparities requires reforms in exam design, support mechanisms, and institutional practices that account for gender-specific challenges. Originality/Value: This systematic review delivers significant conceptual and analytical contributions to the fields of higher education assessment, gender studies, and educational quality assurance by synthesizing the evolution of literature regarding gender dynamics in higher education exit exams, encompassing performance outcomes, heightened test anxiety, systemic biases, sociocultural factors, and assessment design, an area that remains insufficiently consolidated. This review maps critical theoretical and methodological gaps while serving as a strategic reference for higher education administrators, assessment designers, and education policymakers in charting future research directions, advancing gender sensitive evaluation frameworks, and instituting institutional reforms to ensure equitable academic credentialing.]]>
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