The ability to accurately measure academic motivation is important to its value as a predictive variable for learning, achievement, and other outcomes. Although measures of motivation are frequently subject to quantitative validation (e.g., Appleton, Ntoumanis, Quested, Viladrich, & Duda, 2016; Gagné et al., 2015; Pekrun, Goetz, Frenzel, Barchfeld, & Perry, 2011), the establishment of cognitive validity is more rare. By conducting cognitive interviews with a sample of elementary-aged children, we explored the cognitive validity of a novel motivation (expectancy–value and academic emotions) survey embedded in an educational technology. Children were largely able to accurately interpret questions, elaborate on their reasoning for answers, and choose answers congruent with those reasons. Challenges to cognitive validity fell under varied and underdeveloped interpretations of expectancy–value concepts; misunderstandings related to available response choices; and discrepancies between younger and older children’s abilities to judge their perceived competencies and values. Insights from these interviews can be applied to interpretation of the immediate survey, but also to design and interpretation of motivation surveys beyond the current measure.

准确衡量学术动机的能力对于其作为学习、成就和其他结果的预测变量的价值很重要。尽管动机的测量经常受到定量验证（例如 Appleton、Ntoumanis、Quested、Viladrich 和 Duda，2016 年；Gagné 等人，2015 年；Pekrun、Goetz、Frenzel、Barchfeld 和 Perry，2011 年），但认知效度比较少见。通过对小学生样本进行认知访谈，我们探索了嵌入教育技术的新动机（期望值和学业情绪）调查的认知效度。孩子们在很大程度上能够准确地解释问题，详细说明他们的答案推理，并选择与这些原因一致的答案。对认知有效性的挑战属于对期望值概念的不同和不发达的解释；与可用响应选择相关的误解；年幼儿童和年长儿童判断其感知能力和价值观的能力之间的差异。从这些访谈中获得的见解可以应用于对直接调查的解释，也可以应用于超出当前衡量标准的动机调查的设计和解释。