The results of the above study show that in relation to combinatorics, the teachers taught extensively the various concepts, and that many of them would even teach beyond what was required in the syllabus. In particular, a considerably large proportion of the teachers would introduce combinatorial concepts involving indistinguishable objects, even though they were aware such cases involving indistinguishable objects were not exactly required in the syllabus.
The participants’ classification of the eight questions in the survey questionnaire shows that the teachers did not merely teach the mathematical concepts and routine mathematical problems, but were also involved in teaching the pupils to handle non-routine problems both within and without the syllabus. In particular, many of the teachers would still teach their pupils the non-routine problems which they considered as outside the syllabus requirement.
This survey was conducted during the last part of the in-service course and sheds some light on how permutation and combination was taught in the Singapore schools after this topic was introduced into the syllabus. As the study was done only on a small group of participating teachers and that the sample was not random, the result of this study cannot be over generalised to the entire group of Singapore mathematics teachers. Further study is needed to have a more in-depth understanding on how combinatorics is taught in the Singapore secondary school setting.