CHAPTER I: Based on the Educational Situation Quality Model, this study examines Spanish secondary school students’ motivation and how it was developing along the course according to their personal variables and perception of the educational situation context. The sample consisted of 797 Spanish secondary school students. A questionnaire was administered at the beginning of the academic year to measure students’ personal and contextual variables and their initial motivation, while another was administered at the end of the academic year to measure the degree of stability. The data analysis was done by using structural equation modeling. The results reveal important associations among students’ personal and contextual (input) variables and their motivation at the beginning of the academic and that these associations remain quite stable along the teaching/learning process. These findings can provide certain keys to increase the intention to learn in secondary education. CHAPTER II: Based on the Educational Situation Quality Model, this study examines simultaneously the effect intention to learn about academic performance. In turn this study examines the measurement personal and contextual variables affect intention to learn. The sample consisted of 797 Spanish secondary school students. A questionnaire was administered at the beginning of the academic year to measure students’ personal and contextual variables and their intention to learn. Moreover, academic performance was assessed and quantified through the grades obtained by the students. The data analysis was done by using structural equation modeling. The results reveal important associations among students’ personal and contextual variables, intention to learn and academic performance, and that these associations remain quite stable along the teaching/learning process. These findings can provide certain keys to increase academic performance achieve in secondary education. CHAPTER III: Based on the Educational Situation Quality Model, this study examines the relationships among students’ personal and contextual variables, intention to learn and the avoidance learning strategies that they use during the teaching/learning process in a specific subject matter. The sample comprised 797 Spanish secondary school students. A questionnaire was handed out at the beginning of the academic year to measure students’ personal and contextual variables, and their initial motivation. Another was conducted at the end of the academic year to measure students’ involvement in their learning process through the avoidance strategies they used. The data analysis was done by structural equation modeling. The results revealed important associations among students’ personal and contextual variables, their motivation at the beginning of the academic year and the avoidance strategies they used. The implications of these findings for teaching and learning in secondary education are discussed. CHAPTER VI: Based on the Educational Situation Quality Model, this study examines Spanish secondary school students’ motivation and satisfaction about teaching/learning developed, that is, on the strategies put teacher to teach and students to learn. The sample consisted of 797 Spanish secondary school students. A questionnaire was administered at the beginning of the academic year to measure intention to learn, while another was administered at the end of the academic year to measure intention to learn and students’ satisfaction. To study these relationships, first, an analysis of variance was applied to this sample that was divided in two groups (students who had a positive evolution and those who had a negative evolution.).Second, the hypothesized connections of the model proposed were examined by structural equation modeling. The results reveal important associations among students’ motivation and satisfaction along the teaching/learning process. These findings can provide certain keys to increase the intention to learn in secondary education and their psychological well-being. The implications of these findings for teaching and learning in secondary education are discussed. PRACTIC GUIDE: Student demotivation is one of the most important concerns for teachers in secondary education. The aim of this paper is to present a practical guide to help teachers improve student motivation in secondary education and to explain how teachers can use this tool in the classroom. This guide was prepared based on a previous study (Abellán, 2016), which was conducted by taking the “Modelo de Calidad de Situación Educativa” (Doménech, 2006, 2011a, 2011b, 2012, 2013) as a reference. The sample consisted of 31 teachers and 797 students from the Valencian Community (East Spain). This guide explains actions to develop student motivation during the course. It emphasizes the importance of making a diagnosis evaluation of intention to learn at the beginning of the course in order to detect deficiencies and to promote changes to improve motivation as soon as possible. At the end of the guide there is a list of actions that can improve student motivation. Finally, the scales that teachers need to complete the diagnosis evaluation of student intention to learn are offered in the annexes.La desmotivación de los alumnos/as es uno de los principales problemas con los que se enfrenta actualmente el profesorado, sobre todo en los niveles de educación secundaria. Basándonos en el Modelo de Calidad de Situación Educativa (MCSE) (Doménech, 2006, 2007, 2011a, 2011b, 2012, 2013 y Doménech-Betoret, Gómez-Artiga y Lloret-Segura, 2014), este estudio, compuesto de cuatro investigaciones independientes, examina a) cómo se genera la motivación de los alumnos/as de secundaria y cómo ésta va evolucionando a lo largo del curso en función de sus variables personales y de la percepción que éstos se formen del contexto de la situación educativa. Además, b) examina de forma simultánea el efecto que tiene la intención de aprender del estudiante sobre su rendimiento académico y c) las estrategias de evitación que ellos utilizan en situaciones educativas de la educación secundaria. Por último, d) este estudio examina la relación entre la intención de aprender de los alumnos/as con su satisfacción sobre el proceso de enseñanza/aprendizaje desarrollado con una asignatura curricular específica. La muestra estuvo compuesta por 797 alumnos/as de educación secundaria obligatoria pertenecientes a 3 institutos ubicados en la ciudad de Castellón de la Plana (España). Se les administró un cuestionario a principio de curso para evaluar las variables personales de los estudiantes, las variables contextuales percibidas y su intención de aprender. A final de curso se les volvió a administrar el cuestionario de la intención de aprender para analizar su grado de estabilidad y otros donde se medían el rendimiento académico, la satisfacción escolar y las estrategias de evitación utilizadas por los alumnos/as. Para estudiar todas estas relaciones señaladas de forma simultánea, se han utilizado modelos de ecuaciones estructurales (SEM), estadísticos descriptivos, correlaciones bibariadas de Pearson, entre otros análisis. Los resultados revelan relaciones positivas y significativas entre las distintas variables seleccionadas para esta investigación. Estas asociaciones se mantienen a lo largo del proceso de enseñanza y aprendizaje. Las implicaciones de este estudio en el ámbito de la educación secundaria obligatoria pueden contribuir a elevar la intención de aprender, el rendimiento académico y la satisfacción escolar de los alumnos/as desde las primeras semanas de curso y a disminuir las estrategias de evitación que estos utilizan. Basándose en los resultados obtenidos en esta investigación, se ha desarrollado una guía práctica donde se explican las actuaciones que deberían seguir los profesores/as a lo largo del curso para mejorar la motivación de los alumnos/as de secundaria. En ella se enfatiza la importancia de diagnosticar a principio de curso, tras varios días de clase, la intención o motivación por aprender de los alumnos/as para detectar posibles deficiencias motivacionales de partida y promover cambios de mejora lo antes posible. Al final de la guía se ofrece un catálogo de acciones capaces de activar la motivación de los alumnos/as en función de cuáles han sido las deficiencias detectadas en la evaluación diagnóstica realizada a principio de curso, también se dan indicaciones para su implementación en el aula. Finalmente, en los anexos de la guía se aportan los instrumentos de medida, a modo de cuestionarios, que el profesorado deberá utilizar para llevar a cabo la evaluación diagnóstica de las variables motivacionales responsables de la activación de la intención de aprender.