A practical study guide to selecting two meaningful development activities from the last three years and reflecting on how they changed your professional behaviour or performance.
AC 3.4 is the final Professional Review criterion. It asks you to look backwards at development you have already undertaken within the last three years and select the two activities that had the greatest impact on your behaviour or performance.
For each activity, you need to reflect on why it was particularly impactful and what actually changed in your behaviour or performance as a result.
AC 3.3 is forward-looking: it concerns development activities you intend to undertake or commence in the next six months. AC 3.4 is retrospective: the activities must already have taken place.
Do not reuse a future development activity from AC 3.3 unless it has genuinely already been undertaken within the relevant three-year period. The two criteria are testing different stages of the CPD cycle.
The assessment guidance explicitly emphasises the last three years. An activity may have been highly influential, but if it falls outside that period it does not meet this requirement.
Check the timing of potential activities before choosing them. This avoids building a strong reflection around evidence that is not eligible for AC 3.4.
The task asks for two selected activities. You do not need to provide a chronological record of everything you have learned during the last three years.
The aim is selectivity: identify the two activities you genuinely believe made the greatest difference to your professional behaviour or performance and reflect on those in depth.
The assessment guidance confirms that both formal and informal CPD are valid. Formal development might include a training course or qualification. Informal development could include coaching, professional reading or significant project experience.
The category is less important than the impact. An informal workplace experience can be stronger evidence than a formal course if it genuinely changed how you work.
An impactful development activity produces a meaningful change rather than simply adding information. It may alter what you know, how you approach a situation, how confidently you perform a task, how you make decisions or how you interact with others.
The question therefore is not “Which activities were most impressive?” but “Which activities produced the most significant change in my behaviour or performance?”
Attending a course, completing a project or reading a professional resource describes the activity. AC 3.4 requires you to go further and identify the effect of that learning.
For example, completing training is not itself evidence of improved performance. The reflection needs to explain what you subsequently did differently, better or more confidently.
The command word reflect requires more than a factual account. Description explains what happened; reflection considers what was learned, why it mattered and how it affected subsequent behaviour or performance.
A useful thought process is: what I did → what I learned → why the learning mattered → what changed afterwards → evidence of that change.
Consider why the selected activity affected you more strongly than other development experiences. Perhaps it addressed an important capability gap, provided direct practice, challenged an assumption, gave useful feedback or arrived at a point when you could immediately apply the learning.
This explanation demonstrates why you selected the activity as one of your two most significant examples rather than simply choosing it because it was recent.
Behavioural impact concerns changes in how you act. This could involve how you communicate, collaborate, respond to conflict, seek feedback, make decisions, include others or approach unfamiliar situations.
Be specific. Rather than stating “my communication improved,” explain what changed in your behaviour and how you now approach relevant situations differently.
Performance impact concerns changes in how effectively you carry out work or study. This might involve improved quality, confidence, consistency, efficiency, problem-solving or ability to complete a particular responsibility.
You do not need to prove the impact through complex metrics. However, a concrete example of changed performance makes the reflection more credible than a broad claim that the activity “helped a lot.”
When selecting your two activities, consider whether you can identify evidence of what changed afterwards. Evidence may come from your own observations, outcomes, feedback from others or situations in which you applied the learning.
The assessment guidance expects a clear connection between the activity and its impact. Evidence helps make that connection visible.
If one of your genuine activities was a formal course or qualification, avoid spending most of the reflection describing modules or course content. Instead, focus on what the learning changed.
Consider which part of the activity influenced you most, why it was relevant to your practice and how you subsequently applied the learning. The assessment needs your reflection, not a course description.
Informal learning can be equally significant. A challenging project, mentoring relationship, coaching conversation or focused period of professional reading may change practice substantially.
Explain what you learned through the experience and identify a specific change in behaviour or performance that followed. This shows why the activity qualifies as meaningful professional development.
The guidance specifically warns against choosing low-impact activities merely because they are convenient to write about. Selection itself is part of the reflection.
Ask which two experiences genuinely influenced you most. A more complex activity may require more thought, but it is likely to produce a more authentic CPD reflection if its effect was significant.
AC 3.4 has a specific evidence format. The official brief requires the reflections to be attached to the assessment as either your own CPD record containing only the two selected activities or a report or reports from the CIPD My CPD Records tool.
The assessment guidance warns against placing this material simply within the main written assessment text.
If you use your own format, the brief does not prescribe a particular template. A practical record could identify the activity and date, briefly explain what it involved, then provide the reflection on why it was impactful and what changed in your behaviour or performance.
The essential point is that the record should contain the two selected activities and enough reflective evidence to address AC 3.4.
The alternative allowed by the brief is to submit a report or reports from the CIPD My CPD Records tool. This provides a recognised way of recording professional development.
Whichever format you choose, the underlying assessment requirement remains the same: the two activities must be eligible, genuinely impactful and accompanied by reflection on their effect.
The official brief states that the CPD record or report for AC 3.4 is not included in the assessment word count. It is submitted as separate evidence attached to the assessment.
This does not mean the reflection should be unnecessarily long. Focus on meaningful evidence of learning and change rather than padding the record.
The official brief states that references and in-text citations are not required for AC 3.4. This makes sense because the evidence is a reflection on your own professional development experience.
The strength of the response comes from authenticity, specificity and the quality of reflection rather than academic referencing.
For each of the two activities, consider:
This is a thinking framework, not a mandatory CIPD template.
A strong reflection selects two genuine activities from the required period, explains why they stand out from other development experiences and shows a credible link between learning and changed behaviour or performance.
It avoids turning the CPD record into a diary of activities. The focus remains on the professional impact of learning.
This resource explains how to select and reflect on previous CPD. Your AC 3.4 evidence must be based on development activities you genuinely undertook within the last three years. Select the two that genuinely had the greatest effect on you and explain the real changes they produced in your behaviour or performance.
AC 3.4 is the final assessment criterion in this 5CO03 resource series.
Specialist support for CIPD Level 3, Level 5 and Level 7 learners, with guidance from HR professionals.
