How Educational Practices Affect the Development of Life-long Learning Orientations in Traditionally-aged Undergraduate Students Matthew J. Mayhew Æ Gregory C. Wolniak Æ Ernest T. Pascarella Received: 1 February 2007 / Published online: 29 November 2007 Ó Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2007 Abstract We investigated curricular conditions and educational practices that influenced the development of life-long learning orientations among 405 undergraduate students. Results suggest that growth in life-long learning orientations was facilitated by instruction that included opportunities for reflection, active learning, and perspective-taking and that provided students with opportunities for positively interacting with diverse peers. Negative diverse peer interactions were found to stifle development. Implications for researchers and practitioners are discussed. Keywords Motivation  Practice  Diverse peer interactions  Outcome Introduction The Association of American Colleges and Universities (2002) charged institutions with providing educational environments that: ‘‘…foster a well-grounded intellectual resilience, a disposition toward life-long learning, and an acceptance of responsibility for the ethical consequences of our ideas and actions’’ (p. xii). Similar charges were heralded by life-long learning experts at an international conference entitled ‘‘Creating life-long learners: a new and inclusive vision;’’ one such expert, conference adviser, Dr. Ann Hodgson reports, ‘‘The goal must be to build learning strategies and assessment systems that will motivate young people to want to go on learning…Learners need to learn and achieve at their own pace so that they continue to feel motivated and believe that they can make progress’’ (as cited in Green 2000). Calls like these lay the foundation for improvements in educational practice M. J. Mayhew (&) New York University, 239 Greene Street, Suite 300, New York, NY 10003-6674, USA e-mail: mm3952@nyu.edu G. C. Wolniak National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA E. T. Pascarella The University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA 123 Res High Educ (2008) 49:337–356 DOI 10.1007/s11162-007-9081-4