Why this discipline needs its own guide
Background
CRediT’s 14 roles were shaped by biomedical and physical-sciences contribution patterns. Applied directly to qualitative research, several role labels mislead. Investigation is not laboratory work; Data Curation is not database management; Formal Analysis is rarely statistical. The taxonomy still applies, but the discipline needs to translate the role definitions into its own conventions before assignment.
Major journals across health-services research, sociology, anthropology and education — Qualitative Health Research, BMJ Open, Sociology, the journals in the Sage Open-Access portfolio — accept CRediT. The 2026 Scientometrics paper Beyond authorship documents how the role distribution in qualitative work differs sharply from biomedical patterns; this is not a problem with the data, it reflects the discipline.
Key considerations
How to assign the roles
- Investigation in qualitative work covers fieldwork: conducting interviews, running focus groups, ethnographic observation, document collection. Name each fieldworker.
- Data Curation covers transcription, anonymisation, coding-frame development and codebook maintenance. This is substantial work and deserves explicit recognition.
- Formal Analysis covers thematic analysis, framework analysis, grounded-theory coding, narrative analysis or discourse analysis. The analytical approach belongs in the Methods section; the CRediT role records who did the analysis.
- Methodology often involves the choice of theoretical framework as well as the practical procedure. Both belong under Methodology.
- Reflexivity statements and positionality declarations supplement the CRediT statement; they are not a substitute for it.
- Sole-author and two-author qualitative papers are common. A perfunctory CRediT statement (“All roles: author”) is acceptable for genuinely sole-author work but should be the exception, not the default.
Worked example
A representative CRediT statement
Author Contributions (CRediT) R. Olson: Conceptualization, Methodology, Investigation (interviews), Formal analysis, Writing – original draft. M. Diallo: Investigation (focus groups), Data curation, Formal analysis. K. Saito: Methodology (framework), Validation, Writing – review & editing. J. Reyes: Conceptualization, Supervision, Funding acquisition.
The role names above match the canonical wording at casrai.org/credit. Most publishers accept exactly this format.
Further reading
