COM 123—Numerical Reasoning for Everyday Communication

COM 123 is designed for students at the University who are either uncomfortable with numbers/mathematics or simply dislike having to sort out numbers and compute answers to questions involving numbers. The inability to deal comfortably with numbers, probability, and statistics is often called innumeracy and was popularized by a book by Paulos (1988). Also, called quantitative literacy, the ability to understand the basic principles of numbers is vital to everyday communication and is relevant to our personal and professional lives. This course endeavors to convince students of the importance of numeracy and to teach students the basic aspects of quantitative reasoning. Just as important as numeracy is reasoning that often accompanies the principles of quantitative literacy. That is, one must be able to use and understand the principles in reasoning and decision-making. It is understood that the real world often has less than perfect data, ambiguities (some strategic) and multiple possible solutions that are quantitative in nature. As stipulated on the course schedule and in course outcomes, students will learn an array of quantitative/mathematical methods to reinforce methods they may have already learned and/or to introduce them to methods, models, and data analytical techniques new to them and shown in real-life applications. These include but are not limited to: (1) linear algebra, (2) introductory calculus methods, (3) advanced statistics (e.g., multiple regression, analysis of covariance), (4) graph theory (e.g., through social network analysis), (5) discrete math concepts/set theory, and (6) probability (e.g., conjunction vs. disjunction). It is the expectation of this course that students will be able to, at a minimum, be able to understand and compute basic descriptive statistics, probabilities, compound interest, correlation coefficients, chi-square analysis, and some basic social network math related to relative network position in a closed network.