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Notre étude vise à décrire et expliquer la diversité des démarches de sollicitation d’autrui développées par les étudiants en fonction de dispositifs de formation différenciés par leur degré d’intégration des TIC (face-à-face vs e-learning). Toutefois, nous postulons que cette relation n’est pas linéaire mais modulée par le soutien social perçu par les étudiants. Les résultats de notre enquête menée par questionnaire auprès de 195 étudiants vont dans le sens de notre hypothèse. Ils soulignent notamment que, chez les cyberétudiants, le soutien social provenant des pairs revêt une importance particulière dans la mise en œuvre de comportements relationnels de recherche d’informations en face-à-face et par téléphone auprès des enseignants de la formation.

E-learners’ enquiries made outside of the internet: the role of perceived social supportOver the past few years in France, e-learning has progressively spread into educative and training spheres, including university-level education. Whilst recent researches have focused on the online behaviours of e-learners, few of them have investigated training conduct that has developed offline. From a work and organizational psycho-social point of view, we chose to study e-learners’ enquiries about learning made outside the World Wide Web. We hypothesized that the conduct of students is not directly influenced by new online training contexts. Indeed, defending an interactionist and systemic approach, we consider that the development of students’ enquiry strategies is linked to perceived social support provided by significant others. In order to test our hypothesis we decided to adopt a comparative approach that defines two training systems (face to face learning and e-learning). Our survey results, based on a questionnaire administered to 195 students, confirm our hypothesis. They show that e-learning programmes exert a specific influence on students’ enquiries. Moreover, they reveal a modulation effect of social support. Indeed, social support provided by peers (students enrolled in the same training but also those who are enrolled in other programmes) encourages e-learners to carry out learning in face to face situations or via the phone. Finally, our research results underline the significant contribution made by people from different spheres of life to e-students’ training conduct. Thus, they offer a precious information source for scientists and practitioners who are interested in online training development.