Higher education should prepare individuals to be competent professionals and/or researchers in a range of
fields. The educational experience should offer a series of conceptual, procedural and attitudinal contents that
encourage "learning to know, learning to do, learning to be and learning to live together”. In addition, it should
transmit the universal values of respect for others, life and liberty; values which themselves become part of the
curricular content.
More specifically, it is important to consider the curricular value of Mathematics in the education and training
of professionals who do not intend to study or teach Mathematics but for whom the discipline will be an
instrumental or applied science. To a greater or lesser degree, Mathematics has become a constituent part of
almost all the sciences. Scientific progress is impossible without the use of mathematical concepts to represent
phenomena and investigate them in the different spheres of reality.
During their preparation for professional life, university graduates use many of the methods of classical
* Corresponding author name. Tel.: +54- 2281 43 32 92 (231); +34-965903691
E-mail address: pasava2001@yahoo.com.ar; villacampa@ua.es
Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
© 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.
Selection and peer review under responsibility of Prof. Dr. Ferhan Odabaşı
1664 P. Sastre-Vazquez et al. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 93 ( 2013 ) 1663 – 1667
mathematics, and many mathematical concepts have become indispensable elements of our general culture. Even
in everyday life, knowledge of the speed variation of a magnitude (derived) or the summary effect produced by a
factor (integral) applicable to numerous situations, enhancing intellectual horizons.