Why doesn't this test give me one final score?
Because the seven motivations are different fuels, not seven rungs of one ladder. Adding your amotivation to your curiosity produces a number with no meaning, and even the weighted index used in parts of the research literature (the relative autonomy index) has been seriously contested on methodological grounds (Chemolli & Gagné, 2014). Your report keeps the seven readings separate and shows their shape along the self-determination continuum, because the shape is the finding.
Is extrinsic motivation bad?
No. Self-determination theory describes a continuum, not a verdict. Identified regulation is technically extrinsic (you learn for an outcome, not for the pleasure of it), yet it is chosen, stable, and carries people through long unglamorous programs. External rewards built most careers. The pattern worth attention is narrower: when external pressure and guilt are carrying the whole load, learning tends to stop the day the pressure does.
I'm a student. Does this work for me?
It works, with one adjustment: read 'learning new things' as your studies. The items were written for adult learning in the broad sense (courses, new skills, professional reading), not for a specific enrollment. If you want the instrument written for enrolled college students, that is the Academic Motivation Scale of Vallerand and colleagues, which this assessment deliberately is not.
Is this the Academic Motivation Scale (AMS)?
No, and we say so plainly. The construct architecture (seven motivation types from self-determination theory, items written as answers to a question) follows Vallerand et al. (1992), but every item is NOESIS's own wording, the frame of reference was moved from 'why do you go to college?' to adult learning, and none of the original scale's published statistics apply here. If you need a validated instrument for research, use the original under its own terms.
My amotivation score came out high. Should I worry?
Treat it as a signal worth respecting, not a flaw. A high amotivation score means you keep investing in learning while no longer seeing what it returns, and that gap costs energy. It often shows up next to a genuinely demanding season of life, or after years of learning for reasons that were never yours. Look at which of the other six scores used to be higher: that is usually where the thread got dropped.
Can my profile change?
Yes. Motivation is more state than fixed trait: it shifts with the subject, the stakes, and the season of your life. The same person can be all curiosity in one field and pure obligation in another; this profile reads your current overall mix. Re-taking it after a real change (a new role, a finished certification, a sabbatical) shows whether the mix moved.
