HKU POP releases ratings of top 10 political groups Back

POP today releases on schedule via the POP Site the latest ratings of the top 10 political groups. As a general practice, all the figures have been weighted according to provisional figures obtained from the Census and Statistics Department regarding the gender-age distribution of the Hong Kong population in mid-year 2013. Herewith the contact information for the latest survey:

The research design of our "Top ten political groups" has been explained in detail under "Survey Method" in our corresponding web page. The top political groups listed in our latest survey were all those who obtained highest unprompted mentions in our first stage naming survey conducted from October 9 to 11. In that survey, respondents could name, unaided, up to 10 political groups whom they knew best. Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB), Democratic Party (DP), Civic Party (CP), Liberal Party (LP) and People Power (PP) were mentioned most frequently. Please refer to the relevant table in our website for the rest of the list. The 12 most frequently mentioned political groups then entered into the second stage rating survey. During that second stage survey conducted from October 12 to 18, respondents were asked to rate each political group 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 2 political groups in terms of recognition rate were dropped, leaving behind the top 10. In case any group failed to reach the 50% benchmark recognition rate, it would also be dropped. It should, however, be noted that because political groups are not yet legal entities in Hong Kong, such definitions are rather vague, and so-called political groups are constantly evolving. As a result, strange names may appear in the list of groups mentioned by respondents in Stage One surveys. In order to avoid personal bias, our research team will eliminate groups which fall outside the popular definition only after the first stage of the survey. To facilitate readers follow our research process step by step, the POP Site has already displayed the results of all naming surveys conducted since July 1998. The latest ratings of the top 10 political groups, together with the previous ratings, are summarized below:

[6] All error figures in the table are calculated at 95% confidence level. "95% confidence level" means that 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. Media can state "sampling error of various ratings not more than +/-2.3 at 95% confidence level" when quoting the above figures. The error margin of previous survey can be found at the POP Site.
[7] Ratings with recognition rates not reaching top 10 in either stage of survey are not available. { } Number in square brackets indicates rankings.
[8] Such changes have gone beyond the sampling errors at the 95% confidence level, meaning that they are statistically significant prima facie. However, whether numerical differences are statistically significant or not is not the same as whether they are practically useful or meaningful.
[9] In two decimal places, the ratings of NPP and CP are 46.98 and 46.97 respectively. Therefore, NPP and CP ranked at 3rd and 4th places respectively.

Findings obtained in mid-October showed that, the most popular political group was Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions (HKCTU) which attained 49.3 marks. Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions (FTU) scored 48.9 marks and ranked 2nd. The 3rd to 8th places went to New People’s Party (NPP), Civic Party (CP), Hong Kong Association for Democracy and People’s Livelihood (ADPL), Liberal Party (LP), Democratic Party (DP) and Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB), attaining 47.0, 47.0, 46.8, 45.9, 45.8 and 45.0 marks respectively. The 9th and 10th places fell to League of Social Democrats (LSD) and People Power (PP) with respective scores of 37.8 and 36.3. The mean score obtained by the top 5 political groups was 47.8 marks. For this latest survey, Neighbourhood and Worker’s Service Centre (NWS) and Labour Party obtained a support rating of 48.6 and 47.2 marks respectively, but they were dropped due to their relatively low recognition rates. The overall ratings ranked according to results obtained over the past 12 months are tabulated as follows:

[10] “Average rating” is the average of all ratings obtained by political groups over the past 12 months.
[11] “Overall ranking” is first determined by their number of times on top 10, and then their average ratings. { } Number in square brackets indicates rankings.

The overall rankings in the past 12 months showed that, nine political groups were listed for four times, ADPL ranked first, achieving an average rating of 49.8 marks. HKCTU and FTU ranked 2nd and 3rd, attaining average ratings of 49.2 and 49.1 marks respectively. Meanwhile, the 4th to 9th ranks fell to CP, DP, LP, DAB, LSD and PP, with respective average ratings of 48.2, 46.8, 45.3, 43.8, 37.8 and 36.8 marks. NPP was listed twice while HKASPDMC and NWS were listed once, now ranked the 10th to 12th with 46.9, 51.7 and 50.5 marks.

In January 2007, POP opened a feature page called "Opinion Daily" at the "POP Site", to record significant events and selected polling figures on a day-to-day basis, in order to let readers judge by themselves the reasons for the ups and downs of different opinion figures. In July 2007, POP collaborated with Wisers Information Limited whereby Wisers supplies to POP each day starting from July 24, a record of significant events of that day, according to the research method designed by POP. These daily entries would be uploaded to "Opinion Daily" as soon as they are verified by POP.

For the polling items covered in this press release, the previous survey was conducted from June 20 to 25, 2013 while this survey was conducted from October 12 to 18, 2013. In between these two surveys, herewith the significant events selected from counting newspaper headlines and commentaries on a daily basis and covered by at least 25% of the local newspaper articles. Readers can make their own judgment if these significant events have any impacts to different polling figures.

Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of Public Opinion Programme, observed, “Our latest survey of ‘Top 10 Political Groups’ completed in mid-October when controversies over the issue of television licenses were brewing shows that NPP surpasses the recognition threshold again to re-enter the ‘top 10’ list, replacing HKASPDMC. In terms of support ratings, compared to four months ago, the ratings of 6 out of 10 political groups have gone down. Among them, ADPL, CP and DP register drops beyond sampling error, down by 5.3, 3.4 and 2.3 marks respectively. No political groups score more than 50 marks. In terms of relative rankings, HKCTU and FTU each goes up three positions to rank first and second. NPP re-enters the list to rank the 3rd. CP goes down one position to rank the 4th. ADPL goes down four positions to rank 5th. LP and DP swap positions to rank 6th and 7th. DAB, LSD and PP remain at the 8th, 9th and 10th positions respectively. It should be noted, however, that our ‘Top 10 Political Groups’ only includes groups which are best known to the public, ranked according to their support ratings. Other political groups may well have very high or low support ratings, but because they are relatively less well-known, they are not included in our final list. As to what events have affected the ups and downs of the popularity of these groups, readers can make their own judgment after reading through detailed records placed in our ‘Opinion Daily’.”

• October 29, 2013 (Tuesday) 1pm to 2pm: Popularity of CE and HKSAR Government