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The study investigates the effect of delivery types of (virtual and face-to-face) collaborative learning environments on the development of trust among group members in a graduate course. For this aim, a quasi-experimental, non-equivalent group comparison was used. It comprised a total of 64 participants -- 21 in the face-to-face group, and 43 in the virtual group. Study participants were comprised of students registered in a course entitled 'Web-based Education: Principles of Design and Implementation' in the spring semester as part of either a virtual or traditional face-to-face graduate program in Information Systems at an institute of higher education in Turkey in 2010. Trust levels were measured at two different occasions, namely in the beginning and end of the semester, for both study groups. The participants completed a web-based course material design project as a collaborative group activity. The results indicate that trust increases over time among virtual participants, but declines among face-to-face participants. While levels of trust among virtual course participants are lower than those of face-to-face course participants in the beginning of the semester, trust levels of virtual participants surpass those of faceto-face participants by the end of the semester. This study demonstrates that trust can develop in virtual learning environments. The initial level of trust should be taken into consideration by instructors or managers before forming groups.

Online education has expanded and is expected to continue growing rapidly in time along with technological innovations. It is obvious that there is a movement toward online learning which necessitates the need of more empirical evidence on effective learning and learners' achievement. This study investigated effect of the variables: demographics (age, gender, being employed/unemployed, and computer efficacy); Internet self-efficacy; satisfaction (student-student, student-instructor, student-content interaction); and the reasons for online education preferences of students' on their achievement. Differing from previous studies the current study particularly investigates the effect of students' reasons for their preferences of distance education on their success besides all other variables. The results indicated that there is a positive correlation between students' reasons for their preferences of distance education and their achievement scores which was measured by their final test scores. Besides, according to results of the regression analyses, preferences related to achievement was the only variable to affect regression equation in the online course regression analyses. That was accounted for about 5.1% of the variance in students' final grades.