Calls for educational reform emphasize the need for students to develop a capacity for lifelong learning. Lifelong learners may be characterized as curious, motivated, reflective, analytical, persistent, flexible, and independent—traits that are critical for success in today’s globalized economy. Stakeholders in engineering education recognize that students’ development of the capacity for lifelong learning is vital for their success and that instructors play a critical role in influencing such outcomes. However, there is a critical lack of research in this area. This research investigates how instructor choices of active learning pedagogies affect student outcomes related to their development as lifelong learners at four institutions. We measure student self-regulated learning (SRL) in response to a range of active learning pedagogies and suggest that SRL is a proxy for lifelong learning in the context of the formal classroom. We consider the research question ‘In what ways do pedagogical choices made by engineering instructors assist students to develop attitudes and behaviors associated with self-regulated learners?’ The results of this mixed-method design suggest that students’ development as self-regulated learners involves a complex interplay between many factors that are influenced by faculty choices in the course design.