Technology-supported education has become increasingly important and popular. Although it has long been claimed that a technology-enhanced learning environment is often more motivating than its traditional counterpart, not too many inspiring empirical studies have been carried out. In this article, the traditional approach in the motivation research field and its limitations are reviewed, based on which, a new perspective on motivation, a cognitive-situative approach, emerges. It is argued that this new approach might be more applicable for understanding motivation in technology-supported education settings, thus possibly bringing more implications for pedagogical improvement. The authors also propose a new research methodology be taken for studying motivation from a cognitive-situative perspective.