Desmotivação acadêmica: buscando compreender a realidade

This is a qualitative research, which aimed to identify and describe the factors that lead to academic demotivation in a group of students at a public university. It took place in 2018, through semi-structured interviews. The information was analyzed according to the Collective Subject Discourse. The participants were eleven students from different courses, of which nine were female. Four categories were created: Adaptive process, University context, Socioeconomic aspects and Emotional aspects. It was identified that academic demotivation was due to: distancing from the family and the specificities of the new academic demand; infrastructure, activity overload and teaching conduct; financial dependence on parents; and feelings of sadness, nervousness, stress and irritability. Educational institutions must have an attentive and welcoming look towards their students through strategies to promote health and prevent injuries, in addition to considering the individual as a biopsychosocial and spiritual being, enabling improvement in the teaching-learning process and motivation.