2A Mathematics for Social Scientists II
Chris Saker, University of Essex, Wk 1
Edward Codling, University of Essex, Wk 2
22 July - 2 August (two week course / 15 hrs)
Detailed Course Outline [PDF]
Mathematics for Social Scientists is offered throughout the six weeks with teaching scheduled daily before other courses. If taken in conjunction with another course, there is no extra charge.
Course Content
Part 2 of the course starts by continuing the study of calculus begun in Part 1, with discussion of integration and calculus of functions of more than one variable. An application to least squares methods in linear regression is described. An introduction to vectors and matrices follows, together with basic definitions and properties, and their uses; for example, in summarising statistical data, and constructing covariance and correlation matrices.
Course Objectives
This course is intended for those with little recent mathematical experience but who are motivated to learn. The aim is to provide a service course in support of other Summer School courses (primarily in the analysis of quantitative data) by presenting a unified introduction to the mathematical ideas and techniques used in those courses. The structure of the course is arranged, firstly, to provide an introduction to the concepts and techniques for the practical side of the subject, and, secondly, to develop a deeper understanding of the ways in which these concepts and techniques are connected. Summer School participants may take any one Part and/or all three Parts of the course, but anyone taking Parts 2 or 3 will be presumed to be familiar with the material covered in the preceding Parts.
Course Prerequisites
Please refer to the information under 1A Mathematics for Social Scientists, Part 1.
Reading
For a review of the concepts listed in the prerequisites we recommend the differentiation section of the Calculus Refresher which can be found by following the revision booklets link at http://www.mathscentre.ac.uk/students.php. Note that the site also has learning resources available for this and other basic mathematical topics.
Haeussler, E.F., R.S. Paul, and R. Wood. 2004: Introductory Mathematical Analysis for Business, Economics, and the Life and Social Sciences. Prentice Hall.