In this paper, we take a closer look at Danish psychology students’ Master’s thesis projects. We do this by analysing 4,100 descriptions of all Master’s theses in Danish psychology study programs between 2014 and 2019. Via a sentiment analysis of the data material, we identify and categorize the different theses and attempt to identify their methodological focus. Initially, we describe the characteristics of the Danish Master’s thesis and discuss why an analysis of different theoretical and methodological orientations within the theses is relevant. The results we draw out in this article point to what we term a methodological discrepancy between psychological research published in journals and Danish psychology students’ Master’s thesis projects. The sentiment analysis also shows that Danish Master’s theses in many cases refer to one or more specific (meta)theoretical orientations in their problem statements. The paper discusses whether students’ (meta)theoretical orientation(s) can be interpreted as a sign of sound theoretical literacy among students or, conversely, if theory rather is applied in a routine-like manner in Master’s thesis projects. It is further discussed whether the methodological discrepancy is seen because of the more intuitive nature of qualitative methods, or if it caused by what could be termed a dustbowl (qualitative) empiricism. The article is concluded with a discussion on the social normativity of psychological research.

在本文中，我们仔细研究了丹麦心理学学生的硕士论文项目。为此，我们分析了 2014 年至 2019 年间丹麦心理学研究项目中所有硕士论文的 4,100 篇描述。通过对数据材料的情感分析，我们对不同的论文进行识别和分类，并尝试确定其方法论重点。首先，我们描述了丹麦硕士论文的特点，并讨论了为什么对论文中不同理论和方法论取向的分析是相关的。我们在本文中得出的结果指出了期刊上发表的心理学研究与丹麦心理学学生的硕士论文项目之间的方法论差异。情感分析还表明，丹麦硕士论文在许多情况下在问题陈述中引用了一个或多个特定的（元）理论方向。本文讨论了学生的（元）理论取向是否可以被解释为学生良好理论素养的标志，或者相反，理论是否以常规方式应用在硕士论文项目中。进一步讨论了方法论上的差异是否是因为定性方法更直观的本质，或者是否是由所谓的尘桶（定性）经验主义引起的。本文最后讨论了心理学研究的社会规范性。