Student's perception of E-learning during COVID-19 pandemic and its positive and negative learning outcomes among medical students: A country-wise study conducted in Pakistan and Iran

•The ability to stay at home was the most frequent advantage reported by 64.9% of the Pakistani students as compared to 32% of Irani students.•Technical problems regarding e-learning were the most frequent disadvantage among Pakistani and Irani students.•In terms of activity, 5% and 10.9% of students remain extremely inactive and extremely active respectively during traditional face-to-face learning.•18.5% and 3.6% of students remain extremely inactive and extremely active respectively during e-learning and the results are statistically significant (p-value<0.00).•Acceptance of e-learning is statistically associated with country of learning (p-value = 0.020) whereas it is not statistically associated with year of study (p-value = 0.679) and IT skills (p-value = 0.06).