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Reflective Account | Personal Statement | Storyboarding

A Reflective Account, Personal Statement or Storyboard is a technique used to place evidence in context. Some assessors describe Reflective Accounts as describing the “why” of actions that were taken in a particular context, whereas Personal Statements and Storyboards are more descriptive of the “what” and may be more generic and theoretical in nature. However, the label is not very important – the critical aspect is that they are an accurate description by the candidate of work they carried out (linked to performance evidence where possible) and/or their knowledge. The content and context of the evidence determines what it covers in terms of PIs and Knowledge, not the label. It is down to the assessor to make that judgement. Assessors may ask candidates to record claims themselves, but where this is the case the assessor should review and make the final decision. 

A Reflective Account/Personal Statement/Storyboard can be written to cover part of a Unit, an entire Unit or even several Units. The best examples are holistic in nature and cover more than one Unit, at least partially.

Some examples are as follows:

 PDF file  ► Storyboard 316
 PDF file  ► Storyboard 317

These are excellent holistic examples with embedded Work Product [►Work Product ]. They relate to similar units that are both about working with information and data, so are similar in style and methodology. These units lend themselves well to Work Product as the nature of the relevant tasks should make it straightforward to obtain examples from work. These examples make extensive use of screenshots.

Referencing is recorded at the point of the evidence where content maps to the relevant PI and K.

The Monitoring Information Systems (316) example makes effective use of bulleted lists. Reflective Accounts should not consist solely of bulleted lists, however they are used here to list features of software and steps within processes, with good use of headings to complement the narrative. Used in this way, they are a good way of presenting information concisely and clearly within a narrative for the reader.

 PDF file  ► Storyboard 54

This is another excellent holistic example of contextualising evidence within a Reflective Account. This unit – Provide Reception Services (210) – is less disposed to naturally occurring Work Product than the previous examples, therefore photography has been used to capture the maintenance of the reception area as a form of Work Product. This illustrates that the same methodology can be applied to any unit, although the examples of Work Product may look different.

Again, referencing is recorded where it relates to the relevant PIs and K.

Overlap with Work Product

As discussed in the Work Product section [►Work Product ], Reflective Accounts that embed Work Product as thoroughly as this can become almost indistinguishable from Work Product that contains extensive annotation. This is not important, the critical thing is that clear and robust referencing is used to map evidence to PIs and K, in particular to link the performance evidence to PIs. There is more flexibility in how Knowledge is evidenced so if you are restricted – for example, by an E-Portfolio – in the evidence types you can record against one item of Evidence, it is safer to record anything that includes Work Product as Work Product, so when an IV or EV checks an evidence matrix, it is clear PIs are supported by Performance Evidence.

Combining evidence types like this (Triangulation) helps authenticate the evidence as it provides a more complete rounded picture.