The purpose of this study was to investigate some motivational factors that enhancepupils’ written homework performance as well as the obstacles that make writtenhomework a difficult task. The method applied in this thesis is qualitative. Theinvestigation was carried out with the help of semi-structured interviews. The results ofthis study indicate that the pupils have different attitudes to their written homework. Themost interesting result is that not all successful pupils are highly externally motivated.The research shows that external motivational factors can enhance the pupils’ writtenperformance well enough but they can also lead to stress and anxiety and complicate thewriting process for less successful pupils. Another finding of this dissertation is thatdeadlines related to assessment can be treated as a negative form of external motivation.