Validation of an achievement motivation scale.

The motivation construct has had an intense evolution through years, but the scarce measurement instruments have not had similar evolution, in spite of the flaws found in them. An achievement motive scale based on Weiner's attributional theory has been constructed, including as its main novelty the singular causes perceived by students about their academic achievement. The results show good values of validity and reliability psychometric parameters, computed through several criterions. Factor analysis reveals a five-factor structure, which is easily interpreted on the grounds of attribution theory as every factor matches a single cause and the items related with the cause by rationale. This results underlines the importance of causal attribution in determining motivation, and, at the same time, the goodness of fit between causes and factors, provides an indirect support to Weiner's attributional theory that supports the construction of the scale, as a theory of motivation.