Factors affecting Saudi medical students’ engagement during synchronous and asynchronous eLearning and their impacts on the students’ academic achievement: a national survey

Nowadays, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic, electronic learning (eLearning) has become a necessity in education. eLearning can be either synchronous, where classes are conducted in real-time, or asynchronous, where students can access the class material at any time. Student-instructor interaction has become essential to the educational process. In the literature, most studies have focused on the preferred methods of eLearning and the barriers to interaction in eLearning. Thus, this study aimed to investigate the factors that affect students’ interactions during eLearning and their impacts on students’ academic achievements. A national cross-sectional study was conducted among clinical and pre-clinical medical students who were attending universities in five regions of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Data were collected using a bespoke online self-administered questionnaire covering sociodemographic features, eLearning barriers, preferences, and the impact of eLearning on students’ performance and understanding. This study involved 1371 medical students, of whom 52.37