Aims: Educational development is one of the main educational policy makers’ challenges in the information and communication technologies era. No effective response to the real needs of society in the field of knowledge and education production is one of the most important issues facing higher education in the Iran. The aim of this study was to evaluate adherence of the face to face and electronic education to the training and education principles (analysis, design, development, implementation and evaluation) from graduate students’ view.

Methods: This survey study was done on graduate students of Urmia University. 164 persons were selected by simple randomized method. The research instrument was a researcher-made questionnaire with 5 indices and 66 items. Data were analyzed by SPSS 18 software and one-sample T test.

Findings: There was a significant difference between e-learning and face to face education in no compliance of analysis index and its subscales including (content, learner, objectives, and media) from graduate students’ view and except the media subscale, for other cases, the mean score of no adherence to e-learning was higher. Also, there was a significant difference in no compliance of design, development, implementation and evaluation indices between e-learning and face to face education and in all cases the mean score of no compliance in e-learning was higher.

Conclusion: The five education programs principals including analysis, design, development, implementation and evaluation are less obeyed in the e-learning education compared with face to face education from Urmia University graduate students’ view.