Towards Understanding Test Score Pollution in Ghana: Test Preparation Practices, Test Administration Situations and External Factors as Predictors

INTRODUCTION Undoubtedly, test is an essential tool that helps to quantify constructs which helps one to make a value judgment about the degree to which a construct might probably exist in an individual (Akaranga & Ongong, 2013; Akyeampong, 2007; Amedahe, 2000; Anane, 2008). In Ghana and across the globe, evidence suggest that test results are increasingly becoming the benchmark for measuring an institution’s success. We share in the statement that humans are living in an era of increasing interest in accountability which is driven by tests and its outcomes (Azizeh & Mansoor, 2010; Bachman et al., 2013). Standardized tests continue to be touted as the most important measure and predictive of student performance (Akyeampong, 2007; Buzick & Jones, 2015; Chalak & Tavakoli, 2010). Practically, when scores go up, the administrators and politicians are happy and act as though achievement has gone up, but the smile is not that achievement had improved (Chapman & Snyder, 2019). In general, there is more rhetoric than evidence about the consequences of assessment and too often policy debates emphasize only on one side or the other of testing effects coin (Bachman et al., 2013; Cohen et al., 2017). In the case of Ghana, people are of the view that student’s pass their examinations without much evidence to show in their potentials in the job place and as society would want them to function. These perceptions seem to be normal, especially, when a test is seen as an attempt to determine