The purposes of this paper are to identify: (1) the factors affecting the intrinsic motivation of university students in Hong Kong; and (2) gender differences in the perception of intrinsic motivation in Hong Kong higher education environment. The factors of curiosity and external regulation with intrinsic motivation are taken into investigation in this study, because these factors and intrinsic motivation of the local university students have seldom been examined. This study adopting a survey of 162 sampled students, was conducted in a local university in 2011. Findings showed that students with curiosity could lead to their higher intrinsic motivation, but external regulation was not found to be related to intrinsic motivation. In addition, there are no gender differences on the level of intrinsic motivation. (Contains 4 tables and 1 figure.)