Understanding Transgender and Gender-Nonconforming Students’ Experiences in Precollege Engineering Education: A Latent Profile Analysis

Authors

• Jialing Wu, The Ohio State UniversityFollow
• Medha Dalal, Arizona State UniversityFollow
• Rachel Figard, The University of GeorgiaFollow
• Adam R. Carberry, The Ohio State UniversityFollow

Author ORCID Identifier

Jialing Wu | 0009-0000-2222-7191 | The Ohio State University 

Rachel Figard | 0000-0002-1524-5778 | University of Georgia 

Medha Dalal | 0000-0001-5705-1800 | Arizona State University 

Adam Carberry | 0000-0003-0041-7060 | The Ohio State University

Abstract

Promoting gender equity and inclusion in STEM education remains a central priority, yet empirical research inclusive of transgender and gendernonconforming (TGNC) students is limited, particularly in precollege engineering contexts. This study leverages social cognitive career theory (SCCT) to identify latent profiles of students’ engineering-related beliefs while examining how TGNC students are represented across these profiles relative to their cisgender and gender nonreporting peers. The study draws on four years (2019–2023) of repeated cross-sectional survey data from a national precollege engineering initiative involving 75 high schools across 20 US states. Seven SCCT-related constructs were measured and used as part of latent profile analysis (LPA) to identify student profiles. Independent-samples t-tests were conducted to examine pre-post differences within profiles and to compare gender groups at both time points. LPA supported a four-profile solution— highly engaged, moderately engaged, emerging, and disengaged—differentiated by levels of engineering identity and intentions. From presurvey to postsurvey, the proportion of students in the highly engaged and moderately engaged profiles increased, while the emerging and disengaged profiles declined. Gender comparisons indicated that cis-man and cis-woman students generally followed this upward trend, whereas TGNC students exhibited a polarized pattern. TGNC students showed higher postsurvey means in self-efficacy, contextual support and barriers, and engineering identity, though only the increase in engineering identity approached statistical significance (p = .047), and this result was not confirmed by nonparametric testing. Differences in other SCCT constructs were mixed. These findings suggest that TGNC students experience precollege engineering courses in distinct and uneven ways. The results highlight the need to collect more detailed and nuanced gender identity data using person-centered approaches to capture within-group variation and to inform equitable instructional design.

Recommended Citation

Wu, J., Dalal, M., Figard, R., & Carberry, A. R. (2026). Understanding Transgender and Gender-Nonconforming Students’ Experiences in Precollege Engineering Education: A Latent Profile Analysis. Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER), 16(1), Article 3.
https://doi.org/10.7771/2157-9288.1515