• Serçin Karataş, Gazi Üniversitesi, Gazi Eğitim Fakültesi, L Blok 306, 06500 Teknikokullar, Ankara, Türkiye. E-mail: sercin@gazi.edu.tr The Quarterly Review of Distance Education, Volume 10(1), 2009, pp. 65–74 ISSN 1528-3518 Copyright © 2009 Information Age Publishing, Inc. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved. COMPARISONS OF INTERNET-BASED AND FACE-TO-FACE LEARNING SYSTEMS BASED ON “EQUIVALENCY OF EXPERIENCES” ACCORDING TO STUDENTS’ ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENTS AND SATISFACTIONS Serçin Karataş Gazi University Nurettin Şimşek Ankara University INTRODUCTION Distance education has existed more than 100 years organizationally, but it has been trusted in distance learning applications only since the second half of 1960s theoretically (Delling, 1994, as cited by Keegan, 1996). According to the distance education approaches except equivalency theory, instructor and learners are autonomous in a distance learning setting in terms of time and place. Holmberg (1989), Moore (1973) and Wedemeyer (1973; as cited by Keegan, 1996) defined distance education as an educational application that occurs between instructor and students who are sepa- rated because of time and place. In contrast, equivalency theory expresses that it can be made partly a concession especially from time autonomy. Simonson, Schlosser, and Hanson (1999) noted that equivalency theory proposes that “the more equivalent the learning experiences of distant learners are to those of local learners, the more equivalent will be the outcomes of the educational experiences for all learners.” In other words, if equivalent learning experiences can be presented to learners, then learning will be equivalent. The equivalency of the learning experiences can be explained with a simple example: a triangle and a rectangle are differ- ent geometric shapes; however, the areas of both shapes can be equivalent to each other. Similarly, learner experiences in distance and face-to-face learning environments can be