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Men get more first-class degrees than women because the academic assessment system discriminates in favour of them, according to research published this week.

Jane Mellonby and colleagues in the department of experimental psychology at the University of Oxford made the claim after interviewing more than 230 finalists at the university.

The researchers concluded that the gender gap cannot be ascribed to any simple factor but to the interaction between a gender-linked characteristic, such as anxiety, and the demands of the academic assessment system.