Variance vs Variation

Isn’t variance a measure of variation?

Variance is a specific, defined term: measure of distribution spread, i.e. how varied a distribution is. This is calculated by measuring the deviation (difference) of each data point from the mean, squaring it, and calculating its average:

population variance = ${\sigma }^2=\frac{\sum _{}^{}(X_i–\mu )}{N}$

‘Variation‘ is not a specific, defined term, but rather just saying that ‘its datapoints are distributed’.

Variance is in a way a measure of ‘variation’ so a lecturer could end up using this interchangeably when explaining concepts, but it’s unlikely you’ll find a question asking you to calculate the ‘variation’ of a distribution.