The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of a motivationally designed instructional text on motivation and learning. The foundation for motivational design was provided by the combination of a model of motivation in self-regulated learning and the ARCS-approach. The model of motivation is based on concepts like expectancies, incentives, and action control. The ARCS-approach included instructional strategies to enhance attention, relevance, confidence, and satisfaction. Within an experimental study, 75 undergraduate students learned with self-instructional texts. One group learned with a text in which ARCS-strategies were implemented, the other group with a text without any motivational features. Results showed that the ARCS-strategies leaded to positive and negative effects on different motivational indicators of self-regulated learning (i.e., situation-outcome-, action-outcome-, outcome-consequence-expectancies, incentives, action control, personal evaluations of the learning process, and short- and long-term knowledge acquisition). Finally, implications for further research and instructional design are discussed. (Contains 1 figure and 2 tables.)