Abstract
The aim of this study was to evaluate how academic development programmes enable epistemological access to first year students.The study was informed by critical theory and employed critical realism as a methodological framework. The study made use of a qualitative research approach, and participants were purposefully chosen to participate in this study. Data were sourced using interviews. Interviews were conducted with twenty mentors and, data was analysed thematically. The findings show that the mentorship programme exposes first-year students to a condition of possibility and space of being and becoming. The discourse on the academic development programmes supports the idea that epistemological access is not innate, and students must be inducted into it. However, some of the limitations or challenges of the mentorship programme were found to be the overdependence of mentees on a mentor, since mentees rely on chosen mentors to offer information. Moreover, if mentoring is cross-disciplinary, some of the shortfalls were also found to be peer networks being unable to address indepth discipline specific information. However, the study concludes that the mentorship programme causes an epistemic shift from the unfamiliar to the familiar, which transforms into the epistemological level.The recommendation was to solicit first year students’ perceptions to legitimise their experiences and perspectives as the results could be more pronounced.
Keywords: Higher Education, Academic Development, Epistemological Access