Concerns about the importance of variation in statistics education and a<br>lack of research in this topic led to a preliminary study which explored<br>pre-service teachers' ideas in this area. The teachers completed a written<br>questionnaire about variation in sampling and distribution contexts.<br>Responses were categorised in relation to a framework that identified levels<br>of statistical thinking. The results suggest that while many of the students<br>appeared to acknowledge variation, they were not able to provide adequate<br>explanations. Although the pre-service teachers have had more real-life experiences<br>involving statistics and have been involved in the study of statistical<br>concepts at secondary school level, they still demonstrated the same misconceptions<br>as those of younger students reported in research literature. While<br>more students showed competence on the sampling question, they were less<br>competent on the distribution task. This could be due to task format or<br>contextual issues. The paper concludes by suggesting some implications for<br>further research and teaching.
The CAUSE Research Group is supported in part by a member initiative grant from the American Statistical Association’s Section on Statistics and Data Science Education