The motivation to learn is a complex and relevant phenomenalargely discussed by the foreign literature, but not very much explored in Brazil. Thus, the objective of this study was to investigate the factorial structure, the reliability and the correlations among the factors of a goals achievement scale. Subjects were 156 undergraduate students of Psychology from two universities of São Paulo State, of both genders, whose mean age was 22.3 years. A factorial analysis extracted four factors with reliabilities varying from 0.573 to 0.860. First factor was related to performance approach goal, the second to learning goal, and the third and fourth factors were related to distinct aspects of performance avoidance goal. Based on the factorial loadings, correlations between factors and linguistic structure phrases, suggestions were made to help other studies to obtain a valid and reliable scale to assess the achievement goals.
factor analysis; psychological assessment; psychometric properties; test validity
