The present article is devoted to the experience of teaching a bachelor level business course at the Riga Technical University using the action research approach during student group work in an e-learning environment. The objective of the article is to identify the main trends of collaborative work in an e-learning environment: what effect the students’ involvement in the action research method which is based on creating personal knowledge via reflection has on acquiring the course (1); how to measure and assess the students’ creativity (2); how collaboration within the group influences the development of knowledge and creativity (3). The methods of statistical and qualitative analysis as well as systemic content analysis of the students’ work are used in the article. The research allowed identifying several new trends which help to improve the effectiveness of e-learning.