Since publication of Boyer's seminal work entitled "Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the professoriate" (1990), there has been a substantial movement in higher education to improve the quality of instruction and to develop the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) at universities and colleges across the United States. Typically, students in higher education experience instruction that is content-driven and teacher-centered (NSSE 2000), often resulting in high attrition rates from the sciences (Seymour and Aikenhead 1995). In contrast, the concept of SoTL advocates that faculty systematically examine their classroom contexts to improve teaching strategies to enhance student learning. One research method that has been identified as valuable for facilitating this process is that of action research (Kember 2000). Because action research involves iterative cycles of planning, acting, observing, and reflecting, the authors raised and investigated a series of successive research questions. They then report on three cycles. (Contains 1 table and 5 figures.)