In this study, we investigated how well two different student-centred instructional models fostered engineering students' learning in a time of crisis. We analysed students' (N = 375) approaches to learning during four engineering mathematics courses in a Finnish university before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Students' deep and surface approaches to learning, as well as organised studying, were measured five times during an eight-month period. For the control group the student-centred elements were added to the framework of traditional lecture-based teaching, whereas the intervention group's instructional model disrupted the structures of traditional teaching more profoundly. Our results indicate that the pandemic and related restrictions were linked to a decrease in students' deep approach to learning and organised studying, and an increase of surface approach to learning in both groups. However, the intervention group's instructional model supported the deep approach to learning better than that of the control group.