Introduction. Sander, Stevenson, King and Coates (2000) identified differences between medical students in a conventional university and psychology students in a post-1992 university in their responses to different styles of learning and teaching. Method. It had been hypothesised that differing levels of confidence explained why the former felt student presentations would teach them little while the response of the latter was based on fear of presenting. The study reported here investigated differing levels of academic confidence in these two groups using a scale designed to measure Academic Behavioural Confidence (ABC). Results. There was a significant difference between the ABC scores for the two groups (p less than 0.05) in line with the prediction. Further examination of data showed that the ABC scores of the medical students as a group were more varied than those of the psychologists whilst the latter showed more variation across the elements of the scale. Proposals for the further development and deployment of the scale are considered. Conclusion: This study suggests that these two groups come to university very differently prepared for meet the demands of higher education. (Contains 2 tables, 2 figures, and 1 footnote.)