The purpose of this work was to characterize the motivational profiles and obstacles present in 6th grade students of a public educational institution, about the concept of area. For this, a qualitative descriptive study was carried out with 5 students, using two standardized tests for motivations in learning and one with open questions about measures. With the results, we were able to identify that the students have tendencies to extrinsic motivations, situating themselves in two groups: sociable and seekers of success. We also conclude that this becomes motivational obstacles, adding others such as the difficulty to recognize measures, the fact that they are based on easy tasks to measure and using parts of their body for some purpose.