This study addresses how elementary preservice teachers (EPSTs) think about variation in the three contexts of sampling, data and graphs, and probability situations. A qualitative study was undertaken with thirty students in an elementary teachers’ mathematics course. Written surveys were completed by all students both before and after class interventions, and six students participated in pre and post interviews. Collective results from the survey data, interview data, and class observations were used to describe components of an evolving framework useful for examining EPSTs’ conceptions of variation. The three main aspects of the framework address how EPSTs reason in expecting, displaying, and interpreting variation. Each of the three aspects is further defined by different dimensions, which in turn have their own constituent themes. The depth in describing the evolving framework is a main contribution of this research. The framework was used to compare the thinking of the six interviewees from before to after class interventions. Evidence suggests that the class interventions, and the survey and interview tasks, stimulated changes in the way students thought about variation.

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