In the one-page module outline, the following guidance has been provided about the reflective analysis:
The reflective analysis should incorporate what you have learned through the presentation assessment in order to present a theoretically supported analysis of your own experiences on a matter of your choice from the module. In effect, this is an essay with the title:
Describe a part of your own experience as a learner or employee and critically analyse this experience with reference to one topic from the course.
Some students have expressed concerns about identifying a relevant topic, and evaluating how much of the writing should be devoted to their own experiences. Some guidance is provided below.
Identifying a relevant topic
The course module guide lists the topics covered in the lectures, and you have become familiar with these through the weekly presentations. It also lists the three themes of the module as:
1. Issues concerning individuals’ place and meaning in organisations.
2. Issues in understanding contemporary organisations & their management.
3. Ethical issues in broader society which impact on management.

In the tutorials and on the module blog we have been addressing issues on each of these three themes. In selecting which topic you will write on for your reflective analysis, first try to identify that part of your experience which has been useful in the presentations, and which of the above issues most clearly describes the tensions highlighted by that experience. This helps you to focus on the type of analysis you will be conducting.
Now identify one of the key topics from the lectures (use the slides rather than the module outline as some lecture titles will be updated):
1. Choose one lecture title, such as Dr Oultram’s “Youth Employment, Masculinity and Policy”.
2. Consider whether you have specific experiences of employment, training or have been directly affected by government policies in a way that can be discussed with reference to materials from that lecture or the key reading.
3. You might want to be more specific and focus primarily on one concept from that lecture content, such as Foucault’s concept of ‘disciplined selves’, or ‘competing discourses’ and gender identity.
4. Write your essay title; it might be ‘An analysis of my personal experiences as a student drawing on Oultram’s work on Youth Employment, Masculinity and Policy’ or it might be something like ‘the discourse of education: experience of international transitions from school to university’, according to your personal experiences.

You need to make sure you do not diverge extensively from your focal topic in the written assignment, even though you may find a variety of materials throughout the course relevant to your discussion. You should also make sure your discussion is theoretically based, and does not become distracted by reflection on whether an experience was ‘good’ or ‘bad’, or ‘efficient work’ unless this is expressly relevant to the theory being applied.
Writing a reflective analysis
This assessment is not an essay, but a reflective analysis. The difference is that you are drawing on your experience much like if you were undertaking a research project you would draw upon empirical material. In order to write about this in a consistent way, I would recommend the following structure (though you will not be marked down for using a different format):
Introduction
In this section you should explain what topic or issue you have highlighted from the lecture material, and identify the key authors on the subject. You should explain what form your argument will take (the overall ‘point’ your writing is making). This should show how your writing will be structured (e.g. “I will describe the key points from Foucault’s (1982) discussion of governmentality in order to explain how my experience provides evidence for this occurring in contemporary experiences of work”).
Literature Review
In this section you should identify and summarise the key writings on the topic you are focusing on. You should use the course reading list and supplementary reading lists as a guide, but you should also do your own research using the library and Google Scholar to identify appropriate reading on the subject. You should explain the key features of relevant concepts, the context of the writing and how these concepts are going to be used to analyse your own experiences.
Description and Analysis of Personal Experiences
In this section you should describe your own (relevant) experiences. You will not get marks for rambling, so try to be concise. You should then highlight particular sections or implications of these experiences in the light of the literature you have presented in the previous section. You should explain whether these are evidence supporting the literature or if it highlights a limitation of the literature. If you wish, you can split this section into two parts, description and analysis. You could then take the opportunity to start with the description of your experiences before the literature review section if you find that more helpful.
Conclusion
In the conclusion you should summarise your overall argument and indicate how your own experiences have supported and added to your understanding of the issues (as discussed in the written work). This may take the form of supporting or critiquing the literature. You should also identify any areas of theory or emerging from your experiences which might be relevant but which you were unable to explore in this assignment in order to show your wider knowledge of the topics on the module. You may find it helpful to concentrate on one of the three module themes listed on the previous page to summarise your main points.
Good work will be expected to demonstrate the relevance of key theoretical material covered in the module to a compact discussion of personal experience, showing a comprehensive level of understanding supported by quality academic references from the course and supplementary reading lists. The best work will include the theoretical material provided in lectures and tutorials and go beyond that material to show evidence of extensive reading of academic journal articles and books on the subject, and will synthesise that material in their analysis of a concise example of personal experience.