We report a study of the dynamics of coherent island formation in InAs/GaAs films grown by molecular beam epitaxy. A comparison of the temperature dependence of the critical layer thickness for islanding between the migration-enhanced and the continuous growth modes confirms that surface adatom diffusion and indium desorption are the controlling processes which determine the variation of the measured critical layer thickness with temperature. We find that under conditions in which indium desorption is significant, the islanding transition is reversible, which provides a new way to study the dynamics of the islanding transition. Applying this technique, we find that the size distribution of the three-dimensional islands evolves into a bimodal distribution during the reverse process. ©1997 American Institute of Physics.