Age and Developmental Stage

Learner Variable · All learner variables
Evidence · 175 claims (113 show a difference, 40 mixed, 22 no difference) · 142 studies (53 associational, 26 causal, 24 review, 22 quant-synthesis, 10 theoretical, 5 design, 2 qualitative), q1–q4 · 21 of 142 report an effect size · 173 claims rest on one study

Description

Age and developmental stage cover a learner's chronological age, grade level, and the cognitive, language and social development that comes with them. Research uses them as a predictor (growth curves, when skills emerge), as a moderator (an approach that works for older students but not younger ones, or for adults but not children) and to define a population (early childhood, adolescents, adult learners). Age is often a stand-in for what actually matters, such as prior knowledge, reading skill or self-regulation, so a finding that differs by age is a reason to ask which of those it reflects.

Implications

Context

• Findings from undergraduates in a laboratory may not hold for young children, and findings from children may not hold for adults with work and family commitments.
• Grade level sets what learners can be assumed to read, write and manage on their own.

Target Learners

• Early-childhood, primary, secondary, undergraduate and adult learners, each a distinct population in the research.

Target Learning Objectives

• Developmental milestones, achievement growth across grades, and readiness for more independent learning.

Claims

• A practitioner digest asserts, without cited studies, that no research evidence suggests older adults cannot succeed in learning another language [-W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• A relationship exists between students' relative age among their peers and their probability of disability classification [+W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Absenteeism severity varies by grade level, peaking in kindergarten, middle school, and 12th grade [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Academic and nonacademic skills developed in preschool and early elementary years are foundational to important longer-term outcomes [+W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Achievement growth patterns between Catholic and public school students varied by age and subject [~W] — an instructional effect differs with it
• Adult learner groups are more heterogeneous than child groups, calling for individualized instruction and varied learning strategies [+W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Adult learners generally find pronunciation more difficult than children and are unlikely to achieve native-like pronunciation, though experience and self-monitoring offset this somewhat [~M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Adults learn languages more quickly than children in the early stages of second language acquisition [+W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• After accounting for other factors, colleges with higher shares of first-generation, older, English learner, and academically disadvantaged students still earned fewer milestones, while economic disadvantage and dual-credit shares were no longer significant [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Age category, skill level and sport context moderate RAE magnitude [+M] — an instructional effect differs with it
• Age significantly moderates MBI effects on executive functions across all RCTs (larger benefits with older age) and on negative behaviour in active-control RCTs (larger benefits with younger age) [~M] — an instructional effect differs with it
• Age, gender, class level and voluntary programme choice do not significantly predict job search anxiety in the adjusted model [-M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• AI-supported instruction is most effective at the high school level, with between-level differences statistically significant [+M] — an instructional effect differs with it
• All children retold MAIN episode one with the most complexity and episode two with the least, regardless of age or language group [-M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• All narrative microstructure measures increase with age group, but only lexical diversity (NDW) differs between Japanese–English bilingual and English monolingual children [+W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Anthropomorphic explanations appear in older children but less frequently, with only a minority of 14-year-olds' fuse explanations anthropomorphic [+W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• At the end of first grade, children whose kindergarten entry was delayed demonstrated slightly higher reading knowledge and skills than those who started on time [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• At the end of first grade, children whose kindergarten entry was delayed were behind their classmates who began kindergarten on time in math [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Average course-specific test scores decrease as grade level increases, reflecting ability self-selection [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Being a year older at kindergarten entry leads to higher initial achievement [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Children's speech perception in noise is more impaired than adults', requiring higher signal-to-noise ratios for comparable performance [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Chronic absenteeism increased by more than 2 percentage points in 64 percent of elementary schools versus 35 percent of secondary schools between 2017/18 and 2018/19 [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Chronic absenteeism is extremely common among preschool students and declines substantially when children enter kindergarten [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Colleges with higher percentages of first-generation, economically disadvantaged, academically disadvantaged, older, and English learner students earned fewer success points milestones per FTE student [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Common language teaching methods such as oral drills, memorization, and fast-paced competitive activities disadvantage older learners [+W] — an instructional effect differs with it
• Cost function analysis indicates substantially higher spending is needed for equal opportunity: weights of 2.49 for first-generation and 2.63 for students older than 24 [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Developmental change in offloading reflects metacognitive control, not knowledge [+W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Developmental stage moderates the mind-set–achievement correlation, which is nonsignificant for adults [-W] — an instructional effect differs with it
• During early and mid-adolescence, brain reward and emotion systems are more developed than cognitive control systems, leaving self-regulation developmentally out of balance [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Elementary schools are predicted to have lower infection rates than secondary schools using the same operating strategies [+W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Extraversion's protective effect on well-being declines with age, significant only for younger students [~W] — an instructional effect differs with it
• Failure Free Reading, the only word-level-plus-comprehension program, showed impacts for third graders but no impacts for fifth graders [+M] — an instructional effect differs with it
• Families showed widespread variability in which Ocean Guide and Activities components they found most helpful, often citing child age and interest [+W] — an instructional effect differs with it
• Federally-funded adult ESL programs and citizenship classes largely exclude older beginner immigrants because instruction is designed for workforce-bound younger adults [+W] — an instructional effect differs with it
• Five-year-olds struggle with memory-taxing serial motor tasks but perform nearly as well as nine-year-olds when the task is simple [~M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Game-oriented engagement declines with grade level while assessment-driven engagement peaks in Grade 8 [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Gender, age and English proficiency show nuanced group differences in chatbot attitudes and concerns [~M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• General AI literacy is not significantly related to in-service science educators' AI use or to their age, gender, or years of service [-M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Grade 5 students showed very small, non-significant CCU differences, indicating no reliable A4L impact at that grade level [-M] — an instructional effect differs with it
• Having older classmates boosts a child’s test scores but increases the probability of grade repetition and diagnoses of learning disabilities such as ADHD [~M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Iconic visual scaffolds in chemistry visualizations helped low-prior-knowledge high-school students but not higher-prior-knowledge ones, with the effect eliminated for younger middle-school children [~M] — an instructional effect differs with it
• Instructional modifications that lower barriers are optional supports for younger resilient learners but may be necessary for older beginners, pre-literate students, and learners dealing with trauma or disabilities [+W] — an instructional effect differs with it
• Interactive instruction declines and didactic instruction increases across elementary grade levels [+M] — an instructional effect differs with it
• Intersecting identities compound suspension risk: 0.1% of Asian girls without special education services in elementary schools were suspended versus 27% of Black boys with disabilities in secondary schools [+W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• KIPP Atlanta middle school impacts on proficiency generally increase across grade levels [+M] — an instructional effect differs with it
• Language × Age interactions show bilingual preschoolers had the lowest MLUm, NDW, and SI scores, while bilingual school-age children produced the most fragments [~M] — an instructional effect differs with it
• Learner age/level moderates the benefit of negotiation of meaning: high school learners relied on it more than college learners [+M] — an instructional effect differs with it
• Learning ability does not decline with age in healthy older adults [-M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Learning is effective when it builds on children's existing knowledge in real-world contexts, and early fraction foundations matter because many older children struggle with rational numbers [+W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Many practices in adult literacy programs violate principles of learning for adults, including short-timeframe funding, isolated individualized learning, ignored learner experience, and non-meaningful materials [+W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Meaningful engagement with AI as a co-regulatory partner is more likely from middle childhood onwards [+W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Mindfulness interventions delivered during late adolescence (15–18) show the largest effects on youth mental health and well-being outcomes [+M] — an instructional effect differs with it
• Never being expelled in high school was a substantially stronger predictor of college enrollment for Hispanic, English learner, older-entry, and town/rural students than for their counterparts [+M] — an instructional effect differs with it
• No macrostructure measure differs significantly between bilingual and monolingual children, while age improves story structure, internal state terms, comprehension, and aggregate scores but not structural complexity [+W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• No significant interaction between age group and treatment type in acceptability ratings [-W] — an instructional effect differs with it
• Older entrants show higher kindergarten growth rates but lower growth rates in 1st and 2nd grades [~W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Older-arriving ESL learners transfer L1 knowledge efficiently, but learning slows once they outgrow their L1 [+W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Prior research attributes growing male superiority in word problem solving to age, with onset debated between sixth grade and high school [~M] — an instructional effect differs with it
• Prior work has elucidated factors contributing to middle and high school students' perceptions, but less is known about elementary students' perceptions [+W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• PS-I effects vary by grade level: negative for 2nd–5th graders and increasing with age [+M] — an instructional effect differs with it
• Racial/ethnic disparities observed among older students are largely already in place among kindergartners [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• RAE effect size increases linearly with relative age differences [+W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Reading and math achievement gains in 2021-22 paralleled pre-pandemic trends in many grades, with stronger rebounding in math and among younger students [+W] — an instructional effect differs with it
• Reading score trends flattened for ages 9-12 and declined at ages 9 and 12 in the grade equivalent metric by 2000 [+W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Redshirted students' early-grade academic advantage over on-time peers fades as students move through school [~M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Retrieval practice benefits have been observed in children, healthy older adults, and memory-impaired patient groups, not only college students [~M] — an instructional effect differs with it
• Review reports a developmental shift in cognitive offloading: children under-use external aids while adolescents over-rely on them [+W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Scaffolding's effect was greatest among adult learners, though based on a single outcome [+M] — an instructional effect differs with it
• Secondary school students are suspended at more than three times the rate of elementary school students, and recent declines were concentrated in secondary schools [+W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Secondary suspension risk declined and the racial gap narrowed slightly since 2009-10, while elementary rates did not decline and some districts saw large increases [~W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Self-perceived TPACK-21 domain scores do not differ significantly by faculty age group or appointment type [-M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Student disengagement on an adaptive interim assessment gradually increased across grade level [+W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Students at later grade levels were more likely to remain at risk across school years than students at earlier grade levels [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Substantial differences in attaining academic indicators of postsecondary readiness occurred for most student groups, with the largest number between Black and White students, NSLP-eligible and ineligible students, and students entering grade 6 after age 13 [+W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• SWCPM score ranges corresponding to ARM performance levels show monotonic progression across terms within grades, except in first grade [~M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• SWPBIS effects on peer rejection appeared strongest for children first exposed in earlier grades, the one significant grade-cohort interaction among those tested [+M] — an instructional effect differs with it
• Syntea adoption is highest among Gen Z students (63.66%) and declines across older generational cohorts [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Test-enhanced learning generalizes across education levels, from elementary school (g = 0.328) through university/college (g = 0.486). [+M] — an instructional effect differs with it
• The brief reports that adult learners often need high-touch support such as navigators through enrollment and financial aid [+W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• The brief reports that adult learners' priorities differ from traditional-age students', making appropriate messages critical to engaging them [+W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• The brief reports that online tools can engage prospective adult learners and make enrollment convenient given work and family demands [+W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• The impact of AI on learning, motivation, and meaning differs by life stage: AI functions as a supplement for those with established skills but risks bypassing foundational experiences for younger learners [~W] — an instructional effect differs with it
• The interventions narrowed some reading gaps, reducing the Word Attack gap by about two-thirds for third graders and one-half for fifth graders [+M] — an instructional effect differs with it
• The most cited barriers to adult learning are situational, but adults also face internal barriers such as low confidence in their ability to learn [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• The percentage of students who stay at risk across time periods increases across grade levels K–3 [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• The positive relationship between kindergarten entrance age and achievement primarily reflects skill accumulation prior to kindergarten rather than heightened in-school learning ability [+W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• The usefulness of app components varied by child's age: conversation starters were too advanced for some younger children but helpful for older children [+W] — an instructional effect differs with it
• Third grade is the notable exception where retained students did not make smaller gains, likely due to the ITBS Level 8 to Level 9 test format change [-M] — an instructional effect differs with it
• Whether teachers knew their students before Summer Bridge predicted test-score increases and teacher practice, most strongly for older students [+W] — an instructional effect differs with it
• Writing assignments made more challenging demands than mathematics assignments across all three grades, with grade-level patterns differing by subject [~M] — an instructional effect differs with it
• Younger and older adults do not differ in treatment acceptability ratings for GAD with Parkinson's disease [-M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Younger children were more negatively affected by COVID-19 school closures than older children (−0.37 SD vs. −0.10 SD) [+W] — an instructional effect differs with it
• Younger struggling readers benefited more: the interventions generally helped third-grade cohort students more than fifth-grade cohort students [+M] — an instructional effect differs with it
• Age differences on composing tasks (Picture Description, Sentence Retell) were not significant, unlike letter, name, and spelling tasks [-M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Behavioral ratio sensitivity for reaction time increases with age, with adults showing greater RT ratio sensitivity than children [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Children use qualitatively different strategies from adults for flexible cognition, shifting control strategies around 8 to 9 years of age [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Cognitive benefits of balance training do not differ by age in adults aged 19–65 [-M] — an instructional effect differs with it
• Male and female WM growth trajectories do not differ: sex-by-age interactions are non-significant after multiple-comparison correction [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Math anxiety's direct effect on math performance emerges in grade 4 but not grade 3, suggesting a developmental trajectory [~M] — an instructional effect differs with it
• Middle school girls framed Blackness as celebratory culture while high school girls emphasized individual efforts to overcome negative portrayals [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Older adults show reduced accuracy in severe noise (SNR -5) but perform comparably to younger adults in quiet and moderate noise (SNR 20) [~M] — an instructional effect differs with it
• Older children and adolescents with ADHD have lower self-concept scores [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Older preschoolers outperformed younger preschoolers on most writing measures but not on the generative composing tasks [~M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Omission (no response) errors vary with age but not with reading skill [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Problem solving accuracy showed age-related declines but no significant main effect of feedback; a marginal Age × Feedback interaction reflected age differences only within the high-PFB group [~M] — an instructional effect differs with it
• Reappraisal ability shows linear and quadratic relationships with age, while self-reported emotional reactivity shows no age differences [~M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Social-cognitive regions show quadratic activation patterns with age, with adolescents showing lower reactivity-related but higher reappraisal-related activation [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• The benefit of physical guidance for spatial learning increases with age [+M] — an instructional effect differs with it
• The disgust film induction elevated disgust ratings comparably in young and older adults, with no age differences in reactivity or recovery after baseline [-M] — an instructional effect differs with it
• The link between children's affect index and their subsequent collaboration preferences varied with age, with the two proxies for social motivation becoming dissociated in older children [~M] — an instructional effect differs with it
• Verbal working memory shows non-linear growth from ages 3–19, with the most rapid growth during childhood and a brief accelerated period during early adolescence [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Younger children performed more redundant actions than older children [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Active play correlates with creativity (TCT-DP score) in adolescents aged 14–17, but not in children aged 6–13 [~M] — an instructional effect differs with it
• Adolescent, but not childhood, spatial activity participation predicts adolescent spatial skills (paper folding) [~M] — an instructional effect differs with it
• Adolescents and adults perform equally well on the probabilistic reversal learning task overall [-M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Adolescents learn faster from negative reward prediction errors than adults in probabilistic reversal learning [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Adolescents showed a marginally decreased number of punishments before switching in reversal learning [~M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Childhood, but not adolescent, spatial activity participation predicts adolescents' spatial habits of mind [~M] — an instructional effect differs with it
• Children begin applying racial stereotypes to out-groups around age 6, with out-group stereotyping increasing across age groups while in-group stereotyping shows no reliable age differences [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• DD children's deficit in non-symbolic number magnitude processing appears only in studies of older children (10 years and above), not younger ones [~M] — an instructional effect differs with it
• From age 4, children spontaneously devise multiple previously unseen reminder-setting strategies across transfer trials, with this tendency increasing with age [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Greater clinical severity and older child age were associated with more timely EI care plan receipt in a safety-net cohort [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Impending rewards improve adolescent antisaccade performance toward adult levels, accompanied by greater nucleus accumbens activation [+M] — an instructional effect differs with it
• The ability to generate a single correct inhibitory response is evident early in development, while what improves through adolescence is the proportion of trials with correct inhibitory responses [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Traditional Tae-Kwon-Do training produces greater gains than standard physical education on all studied dimensions of EFs, with gains greatest for older children and boys [~M] — an instructional effect differs with it
• Use of consonantal context in vowel spelling develops gradually, emerging around age 8 and peaking around age 11 [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Younger children (3–5-year-olds) answered story comprehension questions less accurately than all older age groups [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Younger students mostly use concrete strategies (e.g., inserting numbers) while older students use abstract rule-based strategies, with the transition around age 14–15 [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Younger students solve letter equations less accurately than number equations, but this difference disappears by age 16–17 [~S] — an instructional effect differs with it
• Inference-making performance improves with age between 6 and 10 years, with children performing better on global than local coherence inference questions [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Vocabulary uniquely predicts local coherence inference making for 6- and 8-year-olds, but neither vocabulary nor working memory predicts it for 10-year-olds [~M] — an instructional effect differs with it
• Older students more often represent the historical subject as heterogeneous [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• No statistically significant differences between grade levels in the association between perceiving science as understandable and emotional engagement [-M] — an instructional effect differs with it
• Older age groups overestimate their mathematical and reading competence more than younger age groups, but this may reflect performance differences [~W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Monitoring discrimination and overconfidence improve with age between kindergarten and second grade [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Number of rubric sessions interacts negatively with mean age: intervention length matters less for older students [~M] — an instructional effect differs with it
• Achievement progress is steeper for students tested at younger ages, especially in math [+W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Bottom-quartile SES students show greater progress than top-quartile students when young, but the pattern reverses at older ages [~W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Young white students progress more slowly in math and reading than Asian, black, and Hispanic students, with differences attenuating at older ages [~W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• English (L2) decoding shows a strong linear relationship with English reading comprehension, with the correlation decreasing as children get older [~M] — an instructional effect differs with it
• L1 decoding is positively related to English reading comprehension for Spanish- and Chinese-speaking MLs, with the correlation decreasing as children get older [~M] — an instructional effect differs with it
• Language pairing, onset age of instruction, and age of assessment showed no significant impact on foreign language word reading group differences [-M] — an instructional effect differs with it
• Grade level moderates multigrade cognitive effects, with a diminishing positive effect from lower to higher grades [+M] — an instructional effect differs with it
• Multi-age classes show no significant cognitive or noncognitive differences from single-age classes [-M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• The association between school discipline and social-emotional self-control is stronger for older students [+M] — an instructional effect differs with it
• Neither grade level nor outcome type significantly moderates the effects of Spanish reading programs [-M] — an instructional effect differs with it
• Studies reporting age and gender differences in student engagement unanimously show higher engagement for girls and younger students [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Attitude effects of innovative teaching decrease with student grade level [+M] — an instructional effect differs with it
• Less sophisticated epistemic belief profiles are more prevalent in younger students and nonacademic tracks, while sophisticated profiles are more prevalent in academic tracks and higher grade levels [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Older students show weaker social comparison effects but stronger dimensional comparison effects than younger students [~M] — an instructional effect differs with it
• Deductive reasoning develops in stages: explicit inference around ages 5-6, modus tollens around 9-10, and explicit metalogic in adolescence [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Age moderates gender differences in both mental rotation and visualisation, with gaps continuing to grow during adolescence [+M] — an instructional effect differs with it
• A seventh-grade slump in divergent thinking is observed at the overall and indicator level [+W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Older students perceive self-assessment as more useful than younger students, while no gender differences were reported [+W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Younger children have difficulty extracting the abstract theme of a narrative text [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Concept-map generation requires age-appropriate instructional support: younger learners profit from high-coherence, pre-structured maps [+M] — an instructional effect differs with it
• Generating questions is effective for university students but likely ineffective for younger elementary students, working at intermediate ages only with instructional scaffolding [~W] — an instructional effect differs with it
• Older and younger Chinese children benefit comparably from reading interventions [-M] — an instructional effect differs with it
• Children's age negatively moderates the pretend play–social competence relation, which weakens as children get older [-M] — an instructional effect differs with it
• Detrimental effects of cannabis on cognitive, academic, and professional performance tend to be larger in younger users [+M] — an instructional effect differs with it
• Specific developmental stages of exposure show distinct effects: antenatal maternal mental health was significant in all pregnancy-stage studies, and early-childhood economic resourcing showed significant associations with outcomes [+M] — an instructional effect differs with it
• The teacher-student SEC relationship is moderated by student SES, teacher years of experience, SEC measurement method, and grade level [+M] — an instructional effect differs with it
• Feedback features shift with age: scaffolds (prompts, audio, physical demonstrations) cluster in ages 3-7 while written and paper-based feedback appears only from age 8 [+W] — an instructional effect differs with it
• Positive feedback effects occur across the full age range 3-11, with no pattern of stronger effects in older children [-W] — an instructional effect differs with it
• Training effects on spatial language comprehension and verbal number skills tended to appear in younger rather than older children [+M] — an instructional effect differs with it
• Arithmetic fluency increases significantly from first to third grade, with substantial individual differences in initial levels and growth [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• The monograph's conclusions on entry age were independent of the form of teaching adopted, across schools with different educational attitudes [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Children aged two to three acquire language more rapidly without teaching than college students taught by methods derived from older psychology [+W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Better writers and older children anticipate the rhythmic beat while poorer writers and young children lag behind it; the arm is less accurate than the fingers except for younger children [~M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Imposed rhythm increases the proportionate rest time within strokes, especially for younger children with finger movement, while the time on the stroke proper tends to remain constant [+M] — an instructional effect differs with it
• Younger children are much more suggestible than older children or adults in response to suggestive questions [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Scattering varies with intelligence-age level: smallest at the lowest mental ages and possibly largest in the middle range, with age-level differences exceeding diagnostic-category differences [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• The effect of Tekster differs by grade level, with slightly smaller gains in Grade 6 than in Grades 4 and 5 [+M] — an instructional effect differs with it
• Even controlling for actual skill, older children, children with stronger social skills, and children with fewer inattentive symptoms were perceived as more academically able by preschool teachers [+W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Older children (over 3.5 years) outperformed younger children on the posttest regardless of instructional condition [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes

The evidence by question

• Does being older at school entry, or older than one's classmates, give a lasting achievement advantage? Being a year older at kindergarten entry leads to higher initial achievement [+M]
• Does the effect of school mindfulness programmes depend on the learner's age? Age significantly moderates MBI effects on executive functions across all RCTs (larger benefits with older age) and on negative behaviour in active-control RCTs (larger benefits with younger age) [+M]
• Can older learners learn a new language as well as younger ones, and what teaching suits them? Learning ability does not decline with age in healthy older adults [+M]

Related Learner Variables

• Prior Knowledge
• Self-Regulation
• Executive Function

Page metadata

Field	Value
type	learner-variable
id	age-and-developmental-stage
title	Age and Developmental Stage
description	A learner's age, grade level or stage of development, from early childhood to adulthood, as it bears on what instruction suits them.
status	review
canonical	True
generated	by claude/unspecified on 2026-10-15
trust	unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content

Frontmatter is the page's machine-readable record — see the Schema & Guide.