Interpersonal Trust Among Students in Virtual Learning Environments: A Comprehensive Review

Interpersonal trust is recognized as one of the pillars of student collaboration and successful learning in virtual learning environments (VLEs). In order to identify the factors that influence interpersonal trust among students in VLEs, we conducted this systematic mapping study to investigate attributes, evolutionary phases of trust and resources that support interpersonal trust among students in VLEs. By analyzing 49 articles, we identified 37 attributes that influence the phases of trust acquisition and loss, categorized into four themes: Ability, Integrity, Affinity and Non-Personal Factors. Attributes such as collaborative and ethical behavior, academic skills and higher grades are often used to select colleagues, mainly through recommendation systems and user profiles. To organize our findings, we developed two concept maps that describe the main characteristics of the definitions of trust and the classification of attributes by phases and themes. This work presents significant findings that contribute to building and improving VLEs that promote trust among students.