Learning Motivation Profile
NOESIS adaptation of the Academic Motivation Scale (Vallerand et al., 1992)
~9 min · 28 questions · Free partial report
Twenty-eight reasons for learning and a simple instruction: rate how much each one sounds like yours. The reasons are answers to a single question, why do you invest time in learning new things, and they span the motivation continuum described by Deci and Ryan's self-determination theory: learning for the pleasure of understanding, for the feeling of getting better, for the pull of fascinating material, because you chose it, because guilt or pride demands it, because the market pays for it, or, honestly, without knowing why anymore. Your report is a profile of seven scores, one per type of motivation, deliberately without a final grade: the seven types are different fuels, not points on a single ruler, and adding them up would erase exactly the information that matters. The items are a NOESIS adaptation, independently written on the construct architecture of the Academic Motivation Scale (Vallerand et al., 1992), re-anchored from college studies to adult learning, and not independently validated: treat results as structured self-reflection.
Seven reasons people keep learning, and no final grade: the shape of the mix is the finding.
- See which of seven motivations actually fuels your learning: the three intrinsic pleasures, the goals you chose, the pressure you put on yourself, the rewards you chase, or the quiet suspicion that none of it leads anywhere. Then read where that mix is sturdy and where it is fragile.
No signup required to start. The Partial Report is free at the end. The Complete costs $9.90, if and when you want it.
What this test measures
I
Intrinsic motivation: to know
Learning driven by the pleasure of understanding: studying something because knowing it is satisfying in itself, with no further payoff required.
I
Intrinsic motivation: toward accomplishment
Learning driven by the satisfaction of getting better: seeking difficulty for the pleasure of going beyond what you could do before.
I
Intrinsic motivation: to experience stimulation
Learning driven by the experience itself: excitement while reading or practising, absorption in good material, hours that disappear into it.
I
Identified regulation
Learning done on purpose for goals you personally endorse. The reason sits outside the task but was chosen by you, which is what makes this the most durable of the extrinsic motivations.
I
Introjected regulation
Learning pushed by internal pressure: guilt, the need to prove yourself, and protecting the picture you hold of your own worth.
E
External regulation
Learning driven by outside consequences: pay, credentials, requirements, and what other people expect of you.
A
Amotivation
The absence of a working reason to learn: going through the motions without seeing what the effort returns. On this scale the higher end is the warning end.
Discover where you stand on each dimension.
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From first click to report.
The process is simple: you respond, the system calculates, and the result appears. No prior signup, no form, no waiting.
- 1
Click "Start for free"
No signup required to start. You identify yourself at the end, when you want to save the result. The test opens immediately.
- 2
Answer the questions
Likert 7-point correspondence scale (Does not correspond at all to Corresponds exactly). Visible progress bar. You can pause and resume from any device after identifying yourself.
- 3
Get the Partial Report
Immediate and free. A text summary of each dimension, with indication of high, medium, or low.
- 4
Decide if you want the Complete
The Partial already delivers value. The Complete adds percentiles, norm comparison, charts, applied recommendations, and a verifiable Certificate.
- 5
Explore in the Integrative Chat
Talk to an AI about your results. Ask how your profile applies to your career, what a high score means, or compare with other tests.
The Partial is yours right away. The Complete, when it makes sense.
| Free and paid, side by side | Partial Report (free, always) | Complete Report ($9.90) |
|---|---|---|
| Interpretive text per dimension, generated from your answers | ✓ | ✓ |
| Raw score for each dimension | ✓ | ✓ |
| One-paragraph overview reading | ✓ | ✓ |
| Everything in the Partial, expanded to 3–5 paragraphs per dimension | — | ✓ |
| Percentile per dimension, compared to reference norms | — | ✓ |
| Inter-dimensional chart with accessible data table | — | ✓ |
| Applied recommendations: career, relationships, self-care | — | ✓ |
| Certificate with public verification and PDF download | — | ✓ |
- ✓Everything in the Partial, expanded to 3–5 paragraphs per dimension
- ✓Percentile per dimension, compared to reference norms
- ✓Applied recommendations: career, relationships, self-care
- ✓Certificate with public verification and PDF download
You only pay after completing the test, if you want to go beyond the Partial.
- ✓Interpretive text per dimension, generated from your answers
- ✓Raw score for each dimension
- ✓One-paragraph overview reading
- ✓Free trial of the Integrative Chat, unlocked by your first test
Payment via PIX (instant) or credit card. Access for 1 year. After that, the report stays visible in read-only mode.
What you receive.
Radar chart with percentiles. Illustrative example.
Executive Summary
"You present a profile marked by high intellectual curiosity and above-average conscientiousness, with moderate extraversion and balanced emotional reactivity. This combination suggests someone who seeks novelty in a disciplined way."
Illustrative example.
Scale analysis
The Complete Report details the practical meaning of each score in 3 to 5 paragraphs, personalized by your combined profile. It is not a generic text by range; the analysis crosses all dimensions to generate specific observations about you.
Applied recommendations
Practical recommendations by area (career, relationships, studies, self-care), based on your combined profile. Certificate with verifiable QR and PDF download.
Why trust this instrument.
Based on the motivation continuum of self-determination theory (Deci and Ryan) as operationalized by the Academic Motivation Scale (Vallerand et al., 1992), this assessment uses 28 independently developed items — 4 for each of the seven motivation types, none reverse-keyed — on a 7-point correspondence scale, scored as raw means from 1 to 7, one per subscale, with NOESIS-labeled bands. There is deliberately no total and no relative autonomy index: the seven types are different fuels, and the aggregate index used in parts of the literature is methodologically contested (Chemolli and Gagné, 2014). The frame of reference was re-anchored from college studies to adult learning, and the items were written by NOESIS to represent the published construct; they have not been independently validated, and the original scale's psychometrics do not apply to them. Treat the results as structured self-reflection.
- Authors:
- Vallerand, Pelletier, Blais, Brière, Senécal & Vallières
- Year:
- 1992
The reliability, norms, and cutoffs shown are those of the original instrument (Academic Motivation Scale (Vallerand et al., 1992)).
This NOESIS adaptation has not yet been independently validated.
- Vallerand, R. J., Pelletier, L. G., Blais, M. R., Brière, N. M., Senécal, C., & Vallières, E. F. (1992). The Academic Motivation Scale: A measure of intrinsic, extrinsic, and amotivation in education. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 52, 1003-1017.
The theory behind this test.
Self-Determination Theory
Motivational theory centered on the needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness as drivers of intrinsic motivation and wellbeing.
Learn more about this theory →Target Audience
Adults who keep learning by choice or by necessity: self-taught learners, career changers, professionals under pressure to stay current, and the L&D people who design programs for all of them.
Recommended ages: 18+
Questions the report answers.
Does understanding things feel like its own reward?
This is the purest fuel: learning because knowing feels good. High means curiosity does real work in your life; you rarely need a deadline to open the book. If it is low while your learning volume stays high, something else is paying for all that effort, and it is worth checking what.
Is getting better at things a pleasure in itself for you?
This motivation feeds on progress: the visible gap between what you could do before and what you can do now. High means you take on difficulty on purpose and finish things for the satisfaction of having climbed them. Low does not mean you lack discipline; it means mastery itself is not what pulls you, so progress bars and streaks will motivate you less than they promise.
Can learning still sweep you up?
This is the flow reading: absorption, excitement, hours that vanish into good material. It is the most mood-sensitive of the three intrinsic scores and often the first to drop when you are exhausted. High means learning works as recreation for you. Low alongside high scores elsewhere suggests you currently learn on willpower, which works but wears.
Did you choose the reasons you learn for?
Identified regulation is extrinsic on paper but behaves like an ally: you learn because it serves goals you personally endorse. The self-determination tradition treats it as the most sustainable of the extrinsic motivations. High here is a good prognosis for finishing long programs even when they stop being fun. Low, next to high external pressure, means the reasons are someone else's.
How much of your learning runs on guilt and self-image?
Introjected regulation is pressure that moved indoors: you learn to avoid feeling behind, ashamed, or less. It is genuinely motivating, which is what makes it tricky; it can produce years of courses and a persistent feeling that none of it was enough. A high score deserves a kind look at what you are trying to prove, and to whom. Low means your self-worth is not chained to your certificates.
How much does the market decide what you learn?
Learning for pay, requirements, or credentials is the oldest motivation there is and nothing to apologize for; it built most careers. It is also the most fragile: it stops the moment the reward does. High external regulation with little underneath it predicts learning that ends at the certificate. Read it next to identified regulation: the same course feels different when you also chose it.
Do you still know why you keep trying to learn?
Read this one inverted: low is the good news. A high score is an alert, not a flaw; it means you keep going through the motions of learning while the sense of it has drained away. That state rarely announces itself, it accumulates. If it is high, the useful question is not how to force motivation back but which of the other six motivations used to carry you, and what happened to it.
Who benefits most.
The collector of unfinished courses
Eleven enrollments, three completions, and a subscription that renews out of hope. The profile usually shows what the collecting is made of: real curiosity that keeps losing to guilt, or external pressure buying courses that no chosen goal ever claims.
A professional whose field is moving under their feet
The tools they mastered are being replaced and the learning is no longer optional. The profile will not slow the field down, but it shows what there is to work with: whether any chosen or curious fuel exists under the obligation, because retraining carried by pressure alone is the version that exhausts.
Someone who learns constantly and enjoys it less and less
The streak is intact, the certificates accumulate, and the pleasure quietly left the building. Seeing the intrinsic scores next to the introjected one puts a name on the difference between learning that feeds and learning that only proves.
Frequently asked questions
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.
Learning Motivation Profile
No signup, no time limit. The Partial is free at the end.
The Complete costs $9.90, if and when you want it.
This test is a self-knowledge tool for informational purposes. It does not constitute a psychological or clinical diagnosis and does not replace evaluation by a qualified professional. The report indicates the AI model used in text generation.
© 2026 NOESIS. All items independently developed. Construct based on the Academic Motivation Scale (Vallerand et al., 1992); no item text is reproduced from the original scale, and the frame of reference was re-anchored from college studies to adult learning. The original scale's published statistics do not apply to these items.