Understanding how students learn is crucial for helping them succeed. We examined brain function in 107 undergraduate students during a task known to be challenging for many students—physics problem solving—to characterize the underlying neural mechanisms and determine how these support comprehension and proficiency. Further, we applied module analysis to response distributions, defining groups of students who answered by using similar physics conceptions, and probed for brain differences linked with different conceptual approaches. We found that integrated executive, attentional, visual motion, and default mode brain systems cooperate to achieve sequential and sustained physics-related cognition. While accuracy alone did not predict brain function, dissociable brain patterns were observed when students solved problems by using different physics conceptions, and increased success was linked to conceptual coherence. Our analyses demonstrate that episodic associations and control processes operate in tandem to support physics reasoning, offering potential insight to support student learning.

了解学生的学习方式对于帮助他们取得成功至关重要。我们对107名本科生的脑功能进行了检查，这项任务对许多学生来说是一项具有挑战性的任务-解决物理问题，以表征潜在的神经机制并确定这些机制如何支持理解和熟练程度。此外，我们将模块分析应用于响应分布，定义使用相似物理概念回答的学生群体，并探讨与不同概念方法相关的大脑差异。我们发现，集成的执行，注意，视觉运动和默认模式的大脑系统可以协同工作，以实现与物理相关的连续性和持续性认知。尽管仅凭准确性并不能预测脑功能，当学生通过使用不同的物理概念解决问题时，可以观察到可分离的大脑模式，并且成功的增加与概念的连贯性相关。我们的分析表明，情节关联和控制过程协同工作以支持物理推理，提供了潜在的见识来支持学生的学习。