Understanding Chinese educational leaders' conceptions in an international education context

This article presents the findings from an interpretative study of an Australian offshore leadership development programme conducted in China from 2002 to 2003. The study explored the conceptions of learning and leadership brought by a group of Chinese educational leaders to the course and investigated the perceived influence of the course upon their conceptions. It was a pre‐ and post‐ comparison case study, inspired by the phenomenographic approach which employed semi‐structured and in‐depth interviews of twenty participants over a 12‐month period. Comparison of their conceptions prior to and after the course indicated an expanded range of, and more complex conceptions. There was a general shift from content/utilitarian‐orientated learning conceptions to meaning/developmental‐orientated conceptions. There was also a shift from task/directive‐orientated conceptions about leadership to motivation/collaborative‐orientated conceptions. This study therefore makes a new contribution to understanding Chinese educational leaders' conceptions of learning and leadership in an international education context.