Improving Students' Performance with Visualization of Error Recovery Strategies in Syntax Analysis

Journal of Research and Practice in Information Technology, Vol. 45, No. 3/4, August 2013 Copyright© 2013, Australian Computer Society Inc. General permission to republish, but not for profi t, all or part of this material is granted, provided that the JRPIT copyright notice is given and that reference is made to the publication, to its date of issue, and to the fact that reprinting privileges were granted by permission of the Australian Computer Society Inc. Visualization technologies can be used to enhance teaching materials. This work is focused on a complex aspect of syntax analysis, syntax error recovery strategies. Compiler visualization is not a new research fi eld, but the authors have not found any visualization tool dealing with this topic. We have enhanced a parser visualization tool called VAST to produce educational visualizations regarding syntax error recovery strategies. We have evaluated the enhanced version of VAST and its visualizations about syntax error recovery strategies. We have detected that students who used the enhanced tool improved their performance developing syntax specifi cations with error recovery. Consequently, these students signifi cantly improved their learning outcomes regarding error recovery exercises. ACM Classifi cations: D.3.4 (Processors): Compilers; K.3.1 (Computer Uses in Education): Computerassisted instruction (CAI); K.3.2 (Computer and Information Science Education): Computer science education Improving Students’ Performance with Visualization of Error Recovery Strategies in Syntax Analysis