Interpretation and inference from previous adolescent studies of psy-chosocial development are both difficult and confusing. Inter-study dis-crepancies involving research paradigms, questions, designs, samples, and measurement have added to the confusion. Further, choosing differ-ent independent measures to address similar research questions has added to the problem. This study was designed to examine differences when using age or grade as the independent measure in studying psychosocial development among early adolescents. A number of findings are pre-sented which indicate that age is a more potent mediator of adolescent development than grade. All twelve psychological and social characteris-tics examined in this study support this contention.
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