Active mastery and knowledge of basic mathematical and statistical techniques.

All Business and Economics students receive basic training in quantitative methods covering subjects from mathematics, statistics, and introductory data analysis. The majority of this training is given in the first year. This period, you will be participating in what we call Quantitative Methods 1 (QM 1). It is followed by a second round of quantitative methods (QM 2) in period 4. In the second year, some additional subjects will be covered. The topics for the latter two courses and the period for the third course depend on your choice regarding study and specialization. In mathematics, we will repeat and extend your knowledge about functions and equations. Questions that play a role in this course are:
* How to translate a given problem into a mathematical model. Most of these problems are questions for a maximum or minimum value or the significance of the problem – mathematically, the existence of a solution.
* How to find maximum and minimum values for a function of one and two variables. We will make use of derivatives and partial derivatives to formulate equations and conditions for extreme values.
* How to solve a system of equations, especially linear equations.

In statistics, we will focus on the following topics:
* Methods of data collection and types of data.
* Descriptive statistics: describing important characteristics of populations or samples by numerical methods as the mean, median, mode (measures of central tendency), variance, and standard deviation (measures of spread) as well as by graphical methods, like histograms, bar charts, or Box-and-Whiskers displays.
* Probability theory, as an introduction to random variables.
* Discrete random variables and the most important discrete probability distribution: the binomial distribution.
* Continuous random variables and two continuous probability distributions: the uniform and the normal distribution.
* Sampling distributions, as a first step to the topic that will dominate the QM statistics agenda from now on: inferential statistics, or inductive reasoning. Understanding why large samples provide so much more information than small samples is an important element of this first step.
* The construction of confidence intervals to estimate unknown population parameters and
* Hypothesis testing in the simplest case of one population. This includes concepts as null and alternative hypothesis, type I and type II errors, and the p-value of a hypothesis test.

For statistics, you will need to acquire a license for the following digital textbook a.k.a. eText:
* Penders, Vince (2026). Statistics Uncharted: The Undergraduate's Guide (1st edition). London: Pearson Education UK. ISBN 978 12 9254 698 8. (Release date: 31-08-2026.)
Your license comes with free access to the online learning environment for statistics (for optional self-study).

For mathematics, you will be provided with a free reader on Canvas:
* QM1 MATHEMATICS.
We recommend that you also acquire a license for our calculus course on Sowiso, a separate online learning environment (for optional self-study).

Math secondary school at "minor" level.