Abstract The aim of this study was to summarize evidence from systematic reviews on the effectiveness of teaching strategies for the development of clinical reasoning or critical thinking in undergraduate nursing students. This is an overview of systematic reviews guided by the Cochrane Handbook recommendations. The research protocol was registered on the Prospero platform under number 187785 and this study is unprecedented. The use of the protocol makes it possible to replicate or update this overview. The research question was What is the evidence of effectiveness from systematic reviews on teaching strategies, isolated, compared or associated, for the development of critical thinking of undergraduate nursing students in any learning environment? The search for Cochrane and non-Cochrane reviews was performed in eight databases and libraries, and in the gray literature. There were no language and year of publication restrictions. A total of 13,936 studies with 6,620 participants were retrieved. Two independent reviewers applied inclusion and exclusion criteria and performed data extraction and quality analysis of the reviews. Eleven reviews with 65 primary studies were included. The syntheses were descriptive and by meta-analyses. Analysis of the risk of bias of systematic reviews was performed using the ROBIS instrument (Risk of Bias in Systematic Reviews); methodological quality was assessed using the AMSTAR 2 instrument (A MeaSurement Tool to Assess Systematic Reviews); and analysis of the strength of evidence followed the recommendations of the GRADE system (Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation). Fourteen studies of 1,350 participants provided evidence for meta-analysis. Despite the very low certainty of the evidence, findings suggest that the teaching strategies of problem-based learning and simulation enable the development of critical thinking in undergraduate nursing students. Risk of bias, high heterogeneity, limited number of studies, and reduced number of participants contributed to lower the level of certainty of the evidence. It is recommended that professors assess students' characteristics before choosing one or another teaching strategy and consider diversified use. The frequency and duration of the application of strategies is important, since the development of critical thinking occurs in a procedural and continuous way. It is recommended that researchers improve the report, including relevant information such as statistical data and characteristics of students and the teaching environment. The use of tools that guide a quality report is indicated. When planning clinical trials, it is important to predict and standardize the time of exposure to the teaching strategy and the number of sessions; use at least two clinical reasoning measurement scales and apply them at least before and after the intervention. These precautions bring robustness to the results. The social contribution of this unpublished thesis is the identification of effective teaching strategies for the development of critical thinking in nursing students, problem-based learning and simulation, thereby making it possible to improve the qualification of future nurses for a safe and evidence-based professional practice.