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

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 field, 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 specifications with error recovery. Consequently, these students significantly improved their learning outcomes regarding error recovery exercises.