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Background. Consideration of motivation in higher education has often been drawn upon theories and research that were based upon school or workplace studies. Aims. This paper reports an open naturalistic study to better characterize the motivational orientation of students in higher education. Method. Open semi-structured individual interviews were conducted with 36 students from three universities in Hong Kong. The analysis used an exploratory grounded theory approach. Results. Motivation was characterized as a framework with six continua with positive and negative poles. On enrolment, students had positions on the six facets of motivation, which shifted as they progressed through their degree, according to perceptions of their teaching and learning environment The positive poles of the six continua were given labels: compliance, individual goal setting, interest, career, sense of belonging and university lifestyle. Conclusion. The formulation of motivational orientation is consistent with contemporary social cognitive theories of motivation in that it has been characterized as a multifaceted phenomenon, with students expressing context-dependent multiple motives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]