Traditional Lectures or Active Learning?

The delivery of lectures through active learning could be considered to be more effective in transferring the knowledge to students than through normal lectures.By active learning, some skills such as problem solving skills and soft skills can be assessed.However, I do not know why first year students were more committed than senior students? Just look what happened in the e-learning forum. First year students are well-involved either in self-reflection part or in any discussion. But when it comes to senior students it seemed that they don't like to get themselves involved in such a forum or discussion. They seem to like normal lectures right? When seeking for opinion from other lecturers,many types of reactions can be heard.May be for courses that involve calculations, it is more difficult to implement the active learning than the course that requires a discussion based on facts. Or we need to attend several workshops before we can fully mastered the teaching by active learning.