Objective/background In mainland China, most universities offer general rehabilitation curricula rather than specialized curricula. The purpose of the current study is to investigate senior students' academic motivation for rehabilitation and examine whether it varies among different curriculum structures, students' gender, specific interests, and parental average education level. Methods This cross-sectional study recruited both senior students in general and those who specialized in rehabilitation curricula using an online survey. The Academic Motivation Scale (AMS) was used to measure academic motivation. Results The response rate was 74.68%, and 59 senior students in total (male: 34.48%; female: 65.52%) were analyzed. Twenty-nine (50.00%) students were from a general rehabilitation curriculum at Guangxi Medical University, and the rest (n = 29, 50.00%) were from a specialized curriculum at West China Medical School of Sichuan University. The overall average academic motivation score was 30.96 +/- 5.92. Students in the specialized rehabilitation curriculum (32.85 +/- 6.26) showed a significantly higher academic motivation score than those in the general rehabilitation curriculum (29.10 +/- 5.00, p<0.05). Male (31.13 +/- 5.67) and female (30.88 +/- 6.12) students had equally high scores (p = 0.88). Students who had specific interests (29.81 +/- 4.73) and those who did not (24.69 +/- 4.92) shared the same academic motivation (t = 2.00, p = 0.06). Conclusions Senior rehabilitation science students in specialized curricula have higher levels of academic motivation than those in general curricula. There was no significant difference in academic motivation scores based on students' gender, specific interests, or parental average education levels.