Collaborative learning enhances social skills by engaging students with their colleagues and taking responsibility for their own learning. A controversy exists between those who believe that social closeness can lead to positive impact on collaborative learning and those who found a strong negative correlation between prior friendship and groupwork performance. Therefore, using an exploratory approach this paper investigates the effects of group members' relationships on collaborative learning. A mixed methodology is used to examine these effects using 11 undergraduate students collaborated in three groups. The results confirmed that higher motivation led to more participation. Due to the small sample size, there was insufficient evidence about the expectations concerning social relationships. However, interaction was more important than social relationships. Further research is required to support these findings.