HKU POP SITE releases the latest figures on the ratings of top ten Legislative CouncillorsBack

The Public Opinion Programme (POP) at the University of Hong Kong today releases on schedule via the "HKU POP SITE" (http://hkupop.pori.hk) the latest survey figures on the ratings of the top ten Legislative Councillors. Since last month, our POP Site has been releasing the results of our regular surveys every Tuesday at 2 pm, except during public holidays, each time with a forecast of the items to be released in the next two weeks. The POP Site will review and adjust this operation regularly; readers are welcome to leave their comments here.

Since the Financial Secretary Antony Leung Kam-chung will announce the first Budget of his term tomorrow (March 6, Wednesday), we will release people's instant reactions towards the Budget the day after tomorrow (March 7, Thursday) at 2 pm. On March 12, 2002, Tuesday, at 2 pm, we will release the latest ratings of the Chief Secretary Donald Tsang Yam-kuen and the Financial Secretary Antony Leung Kam-chung. Then, on March 19, 2002, Tuesday, at 2pm, we will release the latest ratings of the CE and the top ten political groups, people's satisfaction with the freedom of the press, and the credibility rating of the news media in general.

According to the latest figures released today, the top three Legislative Councillors who obtained the highest support ratings in early February were Lau Chin-shek, Lee Cheuk-yan and Rita Fan, attaining 61.9 marks, 60.3 marks and 59.8 marks respectively. Selina Chow and Andrew Wong ranked fourth and fifth, with support ratings of 57.9 marks and 54.5 marks respectively. The sixth to the tenth ranks fell to James Tien, Szeto Wah, Martin Lee, Emily Lau and Jasper Tsang correspondingly. The mean score obtained by the top five councillors is 58.9 marks, while that for the top ten is 55.8 marks, fairly similar to those obtained in a similar survey conducted in early November last year.

The research design of our "Top 10 Legislative Councillors" has been explained in detail under "Survey Method" in our corresponding web page. The top councillors listed in our latest survey were all those who obtained highest unprompted mentions in our first stage naming survey conducted in mid-January. In that survey, respondents could name, unaided, up to 10 legislators whom they knew best. Martin Lee, Emily Lau, Szeto Wah, Jasper Tsang and Lau Chin-shek were mentioned most frequently. Please refer to the relevant table for the rest of the list. Because there was a tie in the 12th and 13th places, 13 names were entered into the second stage rating survey subsequently conducted in early February. During that second stage survey, respondents were asked to rate each legislator in turn using a 0-100 scale. 0 indicates absolutely no support, 100 indicates absolute support, and 50 means half-half. After calculation, the bottom three legislators in terms of recognition rate were dropped, leaving behind the top 10. For easy reference, the POP Site has already displayed the result of all naming surveys conducted since year 2000.

All new surveys reported in the POP Site today are random telephone surveys conducted by interviewers, targeting at Cantonese speakers in Hong Kong of age 18 or above. The sample size of all surveys is over 1,000 respondents. At 95% confidence level, the sampling error of all support ratings for the top 10 legislators is less than plus/minus 1.6 marks, while that for percentages in the naming survey is less than plus/minus 3 percentage points. That means if we were to repeat a certain survey 100 times, using the same questions each time but with different random samples, we would expect 95 times getting a figure within the error margins specified. Shall anyone have any question regarding the research design of the surveys published in the POP Site, members of the POP Team will be happy to answer them, but we will not be able to provide additional comments. Such an arrangement would be reviewed when more resources are available. Please note that Dr CHUNG Ting-yiu Robert, Director of Public Opinion Programme, is solely responsible for the work published in the POP Site, which does not represent the stand of the University of Hong Kong.