A field study was conducted to investigate the effect of gender, and gender combined with other variables on within-term changes in junior college student motivation. Intrinsic motivation (IM) refers to doing an activity for the pleasure and satisfaction derived from participating. Extrinsic motivation (EM) refers to engaging in behaviors as a means to an end. In the first week of the fall term, 2,434 students from a junior college in Quebec were asked to complete the Echelle de Motivation en Education (Academic Motivation Scale) and to provide additional personal data (i.e., name, age, academic program, hours of employment, terms completed, and place of residence). After 3 months, students were asked to complete the scale again. Study findings included the following: (1) pre-test mean scores differed significantly between male and female students, with the females tending to be more self-determined on IM, EM, and amotivation subscales; (2) post-test results revealed that the motivation of all students dropped significantly, though females remained significantly more motivated than males on all subscales; (3) male working students became less self-determined, while working did not seem to have a significant effect for female students; (4) a loss in self-determination took place for males during their first academic term, whereas for females the drop occurred during the second or third academic term. (Contains 70 references.) (KP)