Purpose: This paper aims to first, examine teachers' conception of e-learning and second, is to reveal how e-learning is applied in teaching and learning in the field of Chinese higher education. Design/methodology/approach: Various issues are reviewed in the instruction part, i.e. e-learning applications in China, research and practices of e-learning. The methodology applied in this study is phenomenography. Twenty-four Chinese participants were interviewed in-depth based on a protocol developed in the planning stage. The interviews are analysed from a grounded theory perspective and a set of conceptual categories are proposed. Findings: Five categories, i.e. the centrality of the lecture, online cooperation learning, network learning, student learning, and infrastructure and access are identified in terms of the phenomenographic study. The findings demonstrate that the traditional teaching methods that dominate in China are unlikely to present conditions for mainstreaming e-learning in the near future. Practical implications: Traditional Chinese teaching culture still dominates in higher education, and teachers' conceptions do influence their teaching behaviours. Therefore, a training programme could be developed based on the categories of teachers' conceptions of e-learning. Originality/value: This study helps us to understand how Chinese teachers understand e-learning and how they utilise e-learning in their teaching and learning.