This monograph is a phenomenographic study on intentional changes among Kenyan college students’ conceptualization of leadership during an introductory leadership course. The interest in the subject arose from the researcher’s experiences in leadership education in an African context and the need to understand the process of conceptual change and the factors influencing it. The aim of the research is to contribute to the understanding of intentional conceptual change in an African collectivist cultural setting.

Conceptual change has interested researchers for a long time, but as in scientific research in general, research done in an African context is not profuse. In a similar fashion, much of the conceptual change research has been conducted from the constructivist epistemological perspective. This present thesis utilizes the phenomenographic approach both in its approach to conceptual change and as the research methodology. The phenomenographic approach to conceptual change, with its distinctive understanding of concepts and change, could thus be said to offer an approach which has been less researched, especially in an African context.

This research focused especially in finding answers to the following three research questions. First, how do the participants’ conceptions of leadership change during the leadership course? Second, how do the students’ cultural beliefs appear in and relate to the process of intentional conceptual change? Third, how do the students’ goals influence the in-course self-regulation and the resulting conceptual change?

The context for this research was the East Africa School of Theology, a Kenyan college located in the suburb of the capital of Kenya, Nairobi. The participants were the first year students of a three-year Bachelor of Arts program studying an introductory course in leadership. The group consisted of the entire class of 18 students coming from various Kenyan tribes from all over the country.

This research shows that changes in the students’ conceptions may take place within a relatively short period of time. The phenomenographic outcome space, consisting of the students’ conceptions of leadership before and after the course, shows the changes in the ways the students experienced leadership. More specifically the results show relatively wide variation in the types of changes that took place, such as change of the core conceptions, change in the core elements or in their relationships, increased complexity of the leadership conception, as well as changes in conceptions closely related to leadership. In addition to the changes in leadership per se, the results show the changes that took place within the leadership related cultural conceptions including, for example, understanding of time and leader-follower relationships. Also the results show the influence of the other people on the process of change and the process nature of conceptual change. Regarding the intentionality of the change, the results highlight the importance of a deep approach to learning and self-regulation ability, the negative impact of commitment to collectivist culture on self-regulation and conceptual change, and, similarly, the negative impact of high utility value combined with focus on outcome expectation on conceptual change.

The researcher considers the results to be valuable because they increase understanding of the process of conceptual change and of the factors influencing it in an African collectivist cultural context specifically from the phenomenographic perspective. The results show the multidimensional nature of the process of intentional conceptual change. The results also indicate the need for more research and especially in such cultural contexts in which relatively little research in conceptual change has been conducted.