Research exists on the role of motivation in student learning, especially with subjects in the humanities and social sciences (e.g., Deci, Vallerand, Pelletier, & Ryan, 1991; Vallerand, Pelletier, Blais, Briere, Senecal, & Vallieres, 1992). This body of research would be well served by broadening current understandings of students of the natural sciences. This article describes a quantitative study of first-year university engineering students taking a calculus course. The central topic that we address is how academic motivation of these students correlates with their performance. The findings indicate that the students in the study are highly motivated, extrinsically more than intrinsically, and that self-determination is predictive of improved academic performance. However, the findings also suggest that intrinsic motivation to know plays an interesting role; specifically, it alone seems to be predictive of better performance on a conceptual part of the exam, even though this measure showed no effect on the overall exam score. (Contains 3 tables and 1 figure.)