Authors - Glenn Erick Zambrano Estupinan, Maria Genoveva Moreira Santos Abstract - Virtual Reality (VR) has gradually become an increasingly relevant technological tool in higher education, not only because of its innovative nature, but also due to its ability to create immersive experiences capable of capturing students’ attention and generating meaningful emotional responses. In this con-text, the aim of this study was to analyze the immediate emotional impact produced by a virtual reality experience on university students, using data mining techniques to identify patterns within the collected responses. The research followed a quantitative approach, with a descriptive–correlational and cross-sectional design, and included the participation of 305 students from the Faculty of Computer Sciences at the Technical University of Manabí. Each participant engaged in an immersive experience lasting approximately five minutes using the Meta Quest 2 device. After the activity, a Likert-type questionnaire, with a scale ranging from 1 to 5, was applied in order to evaluate variables such as perceived immersion, realism of the environment, level of attention, emotional interaction, empathy, and enthusiasm before and after the experience. The collected data were subsequently analyzed through exploratory and correlational analysis, as well as through several data mining techniques, including Principal Component Analysis (PCA), k-means clustering, and Apriori association rules. Overall, the results suggest that the virtual reality experience generated predominantly positive emotional responses among the students.
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