Students' perception of asynchronous versus synchronous distance learning during COVID-19 pandemic in a medical college, southwestern region of Saudi Arabia.

Background: COVID-19 preventive measures required a drastic shift to online teaching-learning in most of countries. Institutions used different combinations of live online lectures (synchronous) requiring students to attend the class in real-time, as well as recorded lectures uploaded by the instructors to be accessed by students as per their own convenience (asynchronous). We undertook this study to assess and compare the perceptions of students regarding their learning experiences in the synchronous versus asynchronous mode of instruction using  their teaching-learning during the compulsory online mode of instruction at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic.