Investigating the relationships between spatial ability, interest, and task experience on knowledge retention in engineering education.

Spatial ability has been established as having a significant effect on performance and subsequently on
retention in engineering education. However, the cause for this phenomenon is not yet fully understood.
Based on previous findings, it is posited that spatial ability has an effect on the students’ capacity to
acquire knowledge. This study aspired to investigate this from the perspective of knowledge retention in
an authentic engineering education environment. A cohort of first year undergraduate engineering
students (n = 83) voluntarily participated in this study. Three psychometric tests of spatial ability were
administered to the cohort. After eight weeks, this was followed by an experimentally designed lecture
on novel foundational engineering content and an associated retention test with perceived task
experience and interest measured through 9-point Likert-type items. Results suggest that interest and
spatial ability have an effect on knowledge retention, however no effect was observed between retention
and task experience other than of perceived difficulty. A discussion is presented describing the
implications of this study for future research.