A man with an average GPA was likely to say that they were smarter than 66 percent of their class. For a woman with an average GPA, this figure was only 54 percent.

Men were also more than three times more likely than women to say they were smarter than the classmate they worked with most closely.

The study, published in the journal Advances in Physiology Education, looked at data collected from 202 students enrolled in a college physiology class. The data was used to design a statistical model that allowed the researchers to make adjustments for each student’s GPA, so that the effect of gender on the students’ perceptions could be identified.