Over the past decades, plagiarism has been classified as a multi-layer phenomenon of dishonesty that occurs in higher education. A number of research papers have identified a host of factors such as gender, socialisation, efficiency gain, motivation for study, methodological uncertainties or easy access to electronic information via the Internet and new technologies, as reasons driving plagiarism. The paper at hand examines whether such factors are still effective and if there are any differences between German and Slovene students’ factors influencing plagiarism. A quantitative paper-and-pencil survey was carried out in Germany and Slovenia in 2017/2018 academic year, with a sample of 485 students from higher education institutions. The major findings of this research reveal that easy access to information-communication technologies and the Web is the main reason driving plagiarism. In that regard, there are no significant differences between German and Slovene students in terms of personal factors such as gender, motivation for study, and socialisation. In this sense, digitalisation and the Web outrank national borders.

Background and Purpose: The survey was performed to determine the reasons that lead students to possibly commit plagiarism during their studies. By doing so, we wanted to determine the main reason for the appearance of plagiarism and how, within this main reasons, various indicators of plagiarism are judged and, finally, how demographic data and student motivation for study are associated with the reasons for plagiarism.Design/Methodology/Approach: A paper-and-pencil survey was carried out among 17 faculties of the University of Maribor in Slovenia. A sample of 139 students 85 males and 54 females participated in this study, ages ranged from 19 to 36 years. The questionnaire contained 95 closed questions referring to: (i) general data, (ii) education, (iii) social status, (iv) awareness of plagiarism, and (v) reasons for plagiarism. Parametric and nonparametric statistical tests were performed depending on distributions of the answers.Results: The results reveal that information and communication technology is largely responsible for the plagiarism with two reasons highlighted: ease of copying and ease of access to materials and new technologies. We also found some differences between low and high motivated students. Different average values of the answers considering motivation for study were confirmed for academic skills, teaching factors and other reasons for plagiarism, where the average for lower motivated students is significantly different (higher) than the average for higher motivated students. At the end we could find no direct relationship between the average time spent on the Internet and plagiarism.Conclusion: The transmission of knowledge is the basic mission of faculties. This mission is based on moral beliefs about the harmfulness of its abuse, and plagiarism is exactly such abuse. Regardless of the students past at this point professors are those who could greatly contribute to the right set of skills to keep students off plagiarising.

Background: In spite of significant improvement after multi-modality treatment, prognosis of most patients with glioblastoma remains poor. Standard clinical prognostic factors (age, gender, extent of surgery and performance status) do not clearly predict long-term survival. The aim of this case-control study was to evaluate immuno-histochemical and genetic characteristics of the tumour as additional prognostic factors in glioblastoma. Patients and methods: Long-term survivor group were 40 patients with glioblastoma with survival longer than 30 months. Control group were 40 patients with shorter survival and matched to the long-term survivor group according to the clinical prognostic factors. All patients underwent multimodality treatment with surgery, postoperative conformal radiotherapy and temozolomide during and after radiotherapy. Biopsy samples were tested for the methylation of MGMT promoter (with methylation specific polymerase chain reaction), IDH1 (with immunohistochemistry), IDH2, CDKN2A and CDKN2B (with multiplex ligation-dependent probe amplification), and 1p and 19q mutations (with fluorescent in situ hybridization). Results: Methylation of MGMT promoter was found in 95% and in 36% in the long-term survivor and control groups, respectively (p < 0.001). IDH1 R132H mutated patients had a non-significant lower risk of dying from glioblastoma (p = 0.437), in comparison to patients without this mutation. Other mutations were rare, with no significant difference between the two groups. Conclusions: Molecular and genetic testing offers additional prognostic and predictive information for patients with glioblastoma. The most important finding of our analysis is that in the absence of MGMT promoter methylation, longterm survival is very rare. For patients without this mutation, alternative treatments should be explored.

The paper aims to investigate the main factors influencing the mathematics achievement of social sciences university students in Slovenia. A conceptual model was derived where three categories of variables were taken into account: attitude towards mathematics and math anxiety, engagement in learning activities, and attitude towards involving technology in learning mathematics. Data were collected for seven consecutive academic years and analysed using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM). The results showed a very high coefficient of determination for mathematics achievement (0.801), indicating that variables “Perceived Level of Math Anxiety”, “Self-Engagement in Mathematics Course at University”, and “Perceived Usefulness of Technology in Learning Mathematics”, together, explain 80.1% of the total variance. Based on our findings, we can conclude that teaching in secondary school is a crucial determinant for success in mathematics at university. It is essential to identify the best methods for secondary school math teachers which will help them give future students better entry-level knowledge for universities. These methods will, hopefully, also improve the level of mathematics self-confidence, as well as lower the level of math anxiety, which all considerably affect the performance of students in university mathematics.