Unpacking Barriers to Supervisor Feedback on L2 Graduate Students’ Theses/Dissertations

Effective supervisor feedback is essential for supporting students’ enculturation into the academic community of practice and enhancing the quality of theses and dissertations. However, both students and supervisors often express dissatisfaction with the quality of supervisory feedback, highlighting a clear need for improvement. Prior studies in second‐language (L2) thesis and dissertation contexts have explored feedback perceptions and types, but have not investigated the barriers that impede supervisors from delivering effective feedback. To probe why feedback falls short, this study explored barriers perceived by 33 supervisors across 11 universities in Iran who supervise L2 graduate students. I collected data using semi‐structured interviews. Thematic analysis revealed three interlocking constraint domains, which are student‐related, supervisor‐related, and institutional factors, highlighting how linguistic, affective, and social factors at both individual and institutional levels shape the quality of supervisor feedback. The findings call for investment in student and supervisor feedback literacy, alongside structural reforms to embed sustainable, learner‐centered feedback practices in graduate programs with multilingual students.