Ecological engagement: Systematic review on the use of the research method

This chapter aims to present the results of a systematic review of literature that sought to characterize the researches that stated the use of the Ecological Engagement (EE) regarding its bibliometric and theoretical-methodological aspects. For the search, the term “Ecological Engagement” was used in five databases (SciELO, LILACS, PePSIC, Index Psi, and Redalyc). The final corpus consisted of 46 papers, of which 39 were reports of empirical research, 5 reports of experience, and 2 reviews of the literature. The extracted data were integrated and analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively. Empirical research reports were classified into three groups: (I) papers that stated the use of EE, but did not describe the care to ensure an ecological collection environment; (II) papers describing the ecological environment of data collection, but did not use the Bioecological Theory of Human Development (BTHD) to interpret their results; and (III) papers that described the ecological procedures of data collection and that used the BTHD in the interpretation of the results. EE as a research method can contribute to the advance of knowledge about development processes in several areas. Methodological rigor must be translated both in the research procedures and in the description of such procedures; in this sense the seven criteria that support this research method are still discussed. This favors not only a better understanding of the research results but also the contextualization of the findings in the whole bioecological and sociocultural scenario in which it is designed.