This study was implemented to understand the motivation factors for 2nd grade schoolchildren that effect on their preference for the sweet taste. The subjects included were 118 children (59 boys and 59 girls) and 118 children's guardians, from one elementary school. Children participated in sweet preference test and questionnaire survey with researcher's guidance provided in the school. Children's guardians were asked to fill out the questionnaire via home-letters. The results were as follows: 59% of the children preferred the cocoa beverage with the highest concentration of sugar among five cocoa beverages (0%, 2.5%, 5%, 7.5%, and 10% of sucrose/milk volume). The variables consisted of affective attitude, cognitive attitude, self-efficacy, parenting style, and sweets frequency. According to the analysis, sweet preferences were correlated with children's affective attitude (r=－0.207, p<0.01), self-efficacy (r=－0.288, p<0.01), frequency of drinking carbonated beverage (r=0.272, p<0.01), preference for yogurt (r=0.184, p<0.05), and preference for sweet bread (r=0.226, p<0.05). These results indicated that children can be more affected by affective attitude than cognitive attitude, and self-efficacy can be an important motivation factor to control the eating behavior related to sweets. Therefore, nutrition educators need to focus on developing various methods related to increasing self-efficacy for encouraging and motivating healthy eating behavior in children.