Some amorphous metals show a glass transition peak in a linear heating differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) experiment before crystallisation occurs. The temperature at which this peak is observed is a function of the heating rate used in the DSC experiment. From this dependence, an effective activation energy can be obtained using Kissinger analysis. The literature suggests that the glass transition is a kinetic phenomenon, caused by the production and annihilation of structural defects. Starting from the differential equation that describes the rate of change of these defects, an analytic expression is derived for this effective activation energy. The energy is found to have two contributions: one corresponds to the migration of structural defects and the other is related to their equilibrium concentration. The analysis shows the relevance of experimentally determining the slope of a Kissinger plot of the glass transition peak in amorphous metals. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.