The Strange Case of the Disappearing Sex Bias

Bradley (1984) suggested that second markers of student projects, who have less expertise, exhibit a pattern of marking bias whereby female students are marked less extremely than males. Newstead & Dennis (1990) failed to reproduce the pattern of results which prompted this conclusion. Bradley (1993b) suggests that either (i) the second markers in Newstead and Dennis's study may have shown a one‐way bias where females are consistently marked down or (ii) the two‐way bias proposed by Bradley (1984) may not have been detected because it was present in supervisors as well as second markers. These two suggestions were evaluated through further analysis of the original data and consideration of other data sets. Neither is well supported. The proposal that supervisors display biases towards individual students which are stronger for females but which were less marked in the former polytechnics with their heavier teaching loads remains a viable explanation of the data of both Bradley (1984) and Newstead & Dennis (1990), though direct evidence in its support is still lacking.