1071 © Unisa Press ISSN 1011-3487 SAJHE 27(5)2013 pp 1071–1080 Part 1: Introductory article Towards successful participation in academic writing: What can we learn from assessment? Y. Shalem* e-mail: Yael.Shalem@wits.ac.za L. Dison* Y. Reed* *Wits School of Education University of the Witwatersrand Johannesburg, South Africa Abstract The main aim of this short introductory article is to provide a context for the three articles that follow. It begins with a brief review of the literature pertinent to student success or failure in the academy. It then moves to a description of the background of a research project which investigated the cognitive and academic literacy demands of formative and summative assessment tasks for first-year students in the Bachelor of Education (BEd) programme at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) School of Education (WSoE). Keywords: first year students; epistemological access; cognitive demands; academic literacy demands; assessment practices INTRODUCTION Students’ successful participation in undergraduate and postgraduate programmes at higher education institutions (HEIs) in South Africa has been an object of study for at least three decades. In their analysis of access and throughput in higher education, Scott, Yeld and Hendry (2007, 16) show that students’ participation and completion rates have continued to be racially differentiated. This trend is still evident in the 2009 Council on Higher Education (CHE) report (CHE 2009, 43) and the CHE report in 2013 (CHE 2013, 17) and it undermines the gains made since 1994 in terms of formal access. Findings from a study of the 2000 cohort of students show that ‘ive years after entering, only 30 per cent of the total irst-time student intake into the sector had graduated; 56 per cent of the intake had left their original institutions without graduating, and 14 per cent were still in the system’ (Scott et al. 2007, 12). 1 Equally important is the inding that the greatest attrition occurred