Underestimation In Anthropology

One assumption is that the marked individuals do not lose their marks. If this were to occur, then the population would be overestimated as fewer marked individuals would be recaptured. Another assumption is that the marked individuals are randomly dispersed throughout the population. If the marked individuals congregate in a specific area, then the population size can be overestimated or underestimated depending on where the recapture takes place. The population will be underestimated if recapture takes place in an area where marked individuals congregate, or overestimated if recapture takes place where marked individuals do not.

Our estimation was far below the official enrollment size. This suggests that our data underestimated the “true” value of the population size. One factor that may account for this misestimate is that marked individuals were more likely to gather in a specific location or at a specific time. For instance, more foundation students may congregate at the locations or times that we recaptured individuals. An additional factor may be that not all marked students kept their marks on, which would result in a lower number of marked students counted during recapture. Another reason may be that individuals who were not undergraduates were counted as undergraduates. From our experimental setup, it was impossible to know for certain whether an individual was an undergraduate, as we classified students based on their appearance and did not ask them directly.
In order to get an estimate closer to the true size of the undergraduate population, recapture should take place in areas and times that are more representative of the undergraduate population as a whole. This means recapturing individuals at a greater number of locations and times across campus to obtain a better survey of where and when undergraduates are. There should also be a more systematic method to determining whether an individual is an undergraduate or not