Relevance. The quality of motivation characterizes the nature of urges. It is manifested in how much the motivation of a particular activity is connected with its process (intrinsic motivation) or with an alienated result (extrinsic motivation), or with intermediate types between them (E. Deci, R. Ryan). In the present study we examine how the quality of motivation of students' learning activity is associated with the experiences of pleasure, meaning, effort and void as their absence (in light of D. Leontiev’s three-dimensional model of activity-related experiences).

Objective. We aim to reveal relationships between the quality of motivation of learning activity and experiences related to this activity.

Methods.We used Activity-related Experiences Assessment inventory (AREA) to measure experiences in leisure and study, and Universal Perceived Locus of Causality Scale (UPLOC) to assess the quality of motivation. The correlation study was conducted on students sample of 17-24 years (M=18.35; SD=1.00).(N = 357).

Results. The connection of the pleasure experience in learning activity with its motivation increases monotonously when moving from controlled (external) to autonomous types of motivation, changing the minus sign to a plus; the void experience demonstrates reverse pattern. The meaning experience in general reveals similar dynamics to pleasure, but with some differences. The effort experience is insignificantly related to the most autonomous and least autonomous types of motivation, showing a significant positive relationship with the intermediate types of motivation in the middle of the autonomy continuum.

Conclusion. Significant correlations were observed between different types of motivation and experiences related to the same activity and nonsignificant and/or weak correlations between types of motivation and experiences related to different activities.

In this study we tested the hypothesis about advantage of academic motivation profile with dominating intrinsic motivation over another profile with equally high intrinsic, self-esteem and controlled types of motivation (and low level of amotivation). Latent class analysis confirmed the suggestion that these two profiles are most typical in university students. Students with high and dominating intrinsic motivation showed highest curiosity, consistency of interests, perceived academic control and academic achievements but didn’t differ from students with high controlled motivation by the perseverance of effort that was high in both types. Generally the results show that high extrinsic controlled motivation is a disadvantageous factor that decreases student motivational potential. The results are discussed from the point of view of self-determination theory and need model of motivation.