Instructors are encouraged to bring some level of scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) to their instructional activities. Although years of experience may serve as a basis for scholarship, the informal or formal but purposeful collection of data, which is core to SoTL, provides a way to document efforts to improve teaching quality (which may contribute to reward system). However, the ultimate goal of research in teaching is student learning (i.e., achievements). Classroom assessment techniques (CAT) are informal and formative tools providing instructors with an opportunity to modify instruction based on students’ feedback (i.e., perception) when it matters the most (within a semester). Research has shown, however, that people are poor at evaluating their own learning. In contrast, a systematic data collection protocol can be deployed to generate replicated data addressing specific issues with the goal of producing generalizable knowledge. Unfortunately measuring learning outcomes is extremely complex demanding high level of expertise and investment in educational research. Reviewing a large body of literature, Carl Weiman (Nobel laureate in physics) and a colleague have proposed recently a simple teaching practice inventory tool, which they claim can be used as a proxy for students learning outcomes (measured as improvement in grades). This tool may serve as a pedagogical framework to initiate research projects. Evidently, innumerable factors influence the type of research an instructor can realistically engage in successfully. The literature abounds with examples of qualitative (words as data) or quantitative (numbers as data) approaches, experimental designs (pre- and posttest, survey) and statistical methods (parametric, non-parametric). Regardless of challenges and limitations inherent to research in teaching, it is essentially a goal-oriented discovery process that has the potential to transform profoundly one’s own teaching practice. Thus, the “best” research methods might be the ones that that the instructor deems most adequate to shed light on the degree to which the learning environment of their classes promotes student achievements.