Retraction of: Scientific Reports https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-22171-3, published online 03 November 2025
The Editors have retracted this Article.
After publication, concerns were raised regarding the use of student stress factors from a public non-curated dataset. The data, described as containing around 20 features across 5 major factors related to student stress, were reportedly gathered through questionnaire responses. However, no physical measurements of stress levels, such as blood pressure measurement, a key variable in the study, appears to have been collected. Additionally, there appears to be no documented ethical oversight, or consent of the participants included in the dataset. The Editors therefore no longer have confidence in the reliability of this Article.
Rasikh Tariq, M. G. Orozco-del-Castillo, and Tabbi Wilberforce did not explicitly state if they agree or disagree with the retraction. Muhammad Tayyab Zamir and Maria Soledad Ramírez-Montoya did not respond to the Editors’ correspondence about this retraction.
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Tariq, R., Orozco-del-Castillo, M.G., Zamir, M.T. et al. Retraction Note: Explainable artificial intelligence for predictive modeling of student stress in higher education. Sci Rep 16, 14717 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-51945-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-51945-6
