ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on a study designed to explore and understand faculty’s motives for supervising master’s theses in the Nepalese context of higher education. Given the central role of motive in any human activity, it is crucial to examine supervisors’ motives to better understand supervisory feedback practices. Our thematic analysis of the interviews revealed four distinct motives for supervising master’s theses: supervision as research training, supervision as learning to become a better supervisor, supervision as supporting a student in completing his/her thesis and supervision as gatekeeping. The supervisors’ motives were influenced by a multitude of factors, including their previous learning experience and academic exposure, personal belief systems and students’ language proficiency and academic competence. The supervisors’ own learning experience and academic exposure could account for their motives and supervisory practices. Supervisors having a “gatekeeping” motive expected their students to take charge of their learning without providing the much-needed scaffolding.
