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Teaching is one of the few professions where women vastly outnumber men, but it appears that does not protect them from suffering sexism.

A new study has found that students tend to rate male teachers more highly than their female counterparts during an online course, even if the lessons were actually given by a woman.

The students gave the male teachers better ratings for professionalism, fairness and respectfulness.

Male teachers appear to be more highly thought of by students, which can hamper the careers of female teachers even though they tend to dominate the profession. In Britain 60%-80% of teachers are female

They also thought the male teachers gave more praise, were more enthusiastic and were more prompt.

The findings starkly illustrated the extent to which sexism exists even in educated people, the researchers said. 

Lillian MacNell, lead author and a sociologist at North Carolina State University, said: 'We found that the instructor whom students thought was male received higher ratings on all 12 traits, regardless of whether the instructor was actually male or female.

'If the results of these evaluations are inherently biased against women, we need to find ways to address that problem.'

The researchers, whose findings are published in the journal Innovative Higher Education, asked 43 college-aged students to complete an online course, dividing them into four groups of eight to 12 people. The sex of the students is not known.

A female instructor led two of the groups, while a male instructor led the other two.

However, the female instructor told one of her groups that she was male, while the male instructor told one of his groups that he was female.

The students, however, were not told about this while they completed the online course.

They were then asked to rate the teachers in online feedback forms.

The results showed that when the students thought their teacher was a man they gave them an average rating of 4.35 rating out of 5.  

Students taking an online course gave teachers they were told were male higher ratings than those they thought were female, even when the lessons by the 'male' teachers were given by a female. This chart shows the mean student ratings by actual and perceived instructor gender. The difference between the two columns on the right hand side of the graph is deemed to be significant by the researchers

Male teachers were rated as being more respectful, more professional and giving more praise than women

But if they thought they were female they rated them at just 3.55.

Miss MacNell added: 'Students rated the male identity significantly higher than the female identity, regardless of the instructor's actual gender, demonstrating gender bias.

'Given the vital role that student ratings play in academic career trajectories, this finding warrants considerable attention.'