The importance of forming concepts in one's mind has been argued from various perspectives in design studies. This experimental study examines how the co-creative process affects concept formation considering its depth.

The authors conducted a learning experiment applying three processes; non-interactive (NI), interactive but non-co-creative (NC), and interactive and co-creative processes (C). To evaluate whether and how deep the concept is formed in the examinee's mind, mimetic Japanese words, which contain several different explicit concepts underlying a certain integrated implicit concept, were chosen as learning materials. The examinees without any knowledge about mimetic Japanese words were gathered globally and the experiment was conducted fully online using English. Examinees were tested several times to measure how they had formed these concepts for comparing the processes.

The findings suggest that the co-creative process enhances the depth of concept formation: involvement load and willingness to participate in the co-creative process lead to deeper concept formation.

What does learning in today's technology-enhanced environment mean? Is learning as an activity fundamentally changing as a result of the opportunities offered by new technologies and tools? How are the new communicative channels and increased social dimensions possible through Web 2.0 technologies impacting on the way students work and learn? And what does this mean for the role of teachers and institutions in terms of how they support students? This paper considers these questions and reports on findings from current research evaluating how students are actually using technologies and what this research tells us about the ways in which patterns of learning might be changing. It will consider the implications for individual teachers (in terms of designing and supporting learning activities for students) and institutions in terms of the impact on policy and the associated infrastructure needed to provide an appropriate environment that maximises the potential offered by new technologies.