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This policy brief discusses validity and fairness issues that could arise when test-based information is used for making “high stakes” decisions at an individual level, such as, for the certification of teachers or other professionals, or when admitting students into higher education programs and colleges, or for making immigration-related decisions for prospective immigrants. To assist test developers, affiliated researchers and test users enhance levels of validity and fairness with these particular types of test score interpretations and uses, this policy brief summarizes an “argument-based approach” to validation given by Kane.

This policy brief is based on a synthesis of conference proceedings and review of selected pieces of extant literature. To that synthesis, the authors add practitioner-friendly examples with their own analysis of key issues. They conclude by offering recommendations for test developers and test users.

The authors conclude that validity is a complex and evolving construct, especially when considering issues of fairness in individual testing contexts. Kane's argument-based approach offers an accessible framework through which test makers can accumulate evidence to evaluate inferences and arguments related to decisions to be made with test scores. Perspectives of test makers, researchers, test takers and decision-makers must all be incorporated into constructing coherent “validity arguments” to guide the test development and validation processes.

Standardized test use for individual-level decisions is gradually spreading to various regions of the world, but understandings of validity are still uneven among key stakeholders of such testing programs. By translating complex information on test validation, validity and fairness issues with all concerned stakeholders in mind, this policy brief attempts to address the communication gaps noted to exist among these groups by Kane.

The paper is a study of Clarice McNamara, née Irwin (1901–1990), an educator who advocated for reform in the interwar period in Australia. Clarice is known for her role within the New Education Fellowship in Australia, 1940s–1960s; however, the purpose of this paper is to investigate her activism in an earlier period, including contributions made to the journal Education from 1925 to 1938 to ask how she addressed conditions of schooling, curriculum reform, and a range of other educational, social, political and economic issues, and to what effect.

Primary source material includes the previously ignored contributions to Education and a substantial unpublished autobiography. Used in conjunction, the sources allow a biographical, rhetorical and contextual study to stress a dynamic relationship between writing, attitudes, and the formation and activity of organisations.

McNamara was an unconventional thinker whose writing urged the case for radical change. She kept visions of reformed education alive for educators and brought transnational progressive literature to the attention of Australian educators in an overall reactionary period. Her writing was part of a wider activism that embraced schooling, leftist ideologies, and feminist issues.

There has been little scholarly attention to the life and work of McNamara, particularly in the 1920s–1930s. The paper indicates her relevance for histories of progressive education in Australia and its transnational networks, the Teachers Federation and feminist activism between the wars.

IN the editorial columns of our last issue we asked the question, “What of Plymouth?” We are pleased to be able to announce that Mr. Fred. Cole, Chief Librarian and Curator of Huddersfield, has been appointed. Mr. Cole leaves Huddersfield with a splendid record as an indefatigable worker and organizer. Labouring under great difficulties he raised the standard of the Library to a high state of efficiency, and his recently‐organized Music Section has brought a host of appreciations and unqualified praise. We congratulate Mr. Cole on his appointment and wish him every success in his new sphere, where he will find even more scope for his energies and undoubted enthusiasm.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between employee perceptions of unfair treatment of older workers and employee engagement.

In a sample of over 4,500 workers, ages 18-94, from a retail workforce across three regions of the USA, the authors examine the relationship between perceptions that older workers are less likely to be promoted and employee engagement, using multilevel mixed effects linear regression models. The authors also examine whether the relationship is different if older workers were seen as fit for promotion, and whether discrimination is: intentional (fit, but less likely to be promoted) or unintentional (unfit, and less likely to be promoted).

Results indicate that perceived discrimination is related to lower levels of employee engagement among workers of all ages. Findings also suggest that for older workers, there is a more negative relationship between unintentional discrimination and employee engagement, while for younger workers the relationship is more negative for intentional discrimination.

Age discrimination is a critical issue for managerial psychology. While the authors' study is limited to one organization, the idea of unintentional discrimination may make it easier for managers to recognize and challenge discriminatory attitudes and behaviors in less threatening ways.

As older workers of today may not exit the workforce in predictable ways, there is a need to understand potential barriers to continued work. Traditional measures of stereotypes and perceptions of older workers are used here for the first time to construe intentional and unintentional discrimination, which may be one such barrier.