VARIABILITY IN A SAMPLING CONTEXT: ENHANCING ELEMENTARY PRESERVICE TEACHERS' CONCEPTIONS

While recent and ongoing research has begun to reveal ways that precollege students think about variation, more research has been needed to understand the conceptions of variation held by elementary preservice teachers and also how to shape the university courses where those preservice teachers learn. This paper, sharing an excerpt from an exploratory study aimed at preservice teachers, describes changes in class responses to a sampling task where variation is a key component. Overall, going from before to after a series of instructional interventions, responses reflected a more appropriate sensitivity to the presence of variation.