The Development of Theoretical Thinking in School Physical Education: A Critical Analysis of Pedagogical Experiences from the Critical-Overcoming and Developmental Teaching Perspectives

Abstract

This article presents a critical literature review about pedagogical experiences that aimed to develop theoretical thinking in school Physical Education, based on the critical-overcoming approach and developmental didactics. The selection of the corpus took as its starting point the survey conducted by Real and Santos (2021) on knowledge production in the field, from which studies reporting practical teaching interventions with clearly defined theoretical foundations were selected. The findings indicate that, in experiences based on the critical-overcoming approach, the development of theoretical thinking is predominantly postponed until the final cycles of schooling, with a logic that prioritizes empirical thinking in the initial cycles prevailing. It was also found that although studies grounded in developmental didactics often refer to themselves as formative experiments, they do not fully meet the methodological requirements of this theory.  It is concluded that significant challenges remain for the implementation of pedagogical experiences focused on developing theoretical thinking, particularly those aiming to conduct formative experiments within the framework of the theory of developmental teaching.