HKU POP releases the latest ratings of the Top 10 Legislative CouncillorsBack

(1) The Public Opinion Programme (POP) of The University of Hong Kong has completed a test of onsite voting under the "civil referendum" project earlier. The system has proved to be technically viable and can be used any time. The question of whether to use the system to resolve conflicts is non-technical in nature, it would have to be decided by the demonstrators themselves.

(2) In light of numerous public requests received by POP asking us to conduct surveys on the current situation, many with suggested questions, POP has opened a new page today at "PopCon" (http://popcon.hk) to let people suggest questions for general surveys of the Hong Kong public. Once adopted, these questions will be used in standard POP surveys, and their findings would be released as soon as possible. POP takes this as a community service to discover real public opinion.

(3) To facilitate academic study and rational discussion, POP has already released for public examination some time ago via the "HKU POP Site" (http://hkupop.pori.hk) the raw data of all 57 regular rating surveys of CE CY Leung, as well as the 181 regular rating surveys of former CE Donald Tsang and 239 regular rating surveys of former CE CH Tung, along with related demographics of respondents. Please follow normal academic standards when using or citing such data. Moreover, POP's original plan to launch a "POP Education Page" is now put on hold due to the prevailing social situation.

POP conducted a double stage survey on the ratings of Legislative Councillors in October, by means of random telephone surveys conducted by real interviewers. The latest survey of top 10 Legislative Councillors shows that compared to three months ago, in terms of familiarity, Tam Yiu-chung who ranked sixth last time has dropped out of the "top 10" list and replaced by James To. In terms of absolute ratings, the scores of 7 out of the 9 who stayed on the list have gone down, 1 has gone up and 1 remains unchanged. Among them, the ratings of Regina Ip, Alan Leong, Emily Lau, Lee Cheuk-yan and Albert Ho have dropped beyond sampling errors. The first four have even dropped to their record lows since 2008, 2006, 1994 and 1995, meaning that the recent mass movement has taken its toll on councilors from all camps. In terms of relative rankings, Jasper Tsang continues to top the list, now for 7 consecutive times since April 2013. James To re-enters the list again since April 2013 and ranks second. Alan Leong remains at the third position. Regina Ip and Emily Lau both go down two positions to rank fourth and sixth respectively. Lee Cheuk-yan, Albert Ho, Leung Kwok-hung, Albert Chan and Wong Yuk-man remain at the fifth, and seventh to tenth positions. It should be noted however that our list of "top 10" only includes Legco members who are best known to the public, ranked according to their support ratings. Some of the other 60 councillors may well have very high or low support ratings, but because they are not the most well-known councillors, they do not appear on the "top 10" list by design. The maximum sampling errors of the ratings registered fall between +/-1.8 and +/-2.8 at 95% confidence level, while the response rate of the rating survey is 66%.

Points to note:
[1] The address of the "HKU POP SITE" is http://hkupop.pori.hk, journalists can check out the details of the survey there.
[2] The sample size of the first stage naming survey is 1,012 successful interviews, not 1,012 x 66.9% response rate, while that of the second stage rating survey is 1,013 successful interviews, not 1,013 x 65.9% response rate.
[3] The maximum sampling errors of various ratings are not more than +/-2.8. "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. When quoting these figures, journalists can state "sampling errors of various ratings not more than +/-2.8, at 95% confidence level". Because POP introduced "rim weighting" in 2014, during the transition period, whether changes in various figures are beyond sampling errors are based on tests using the same weighting methods. That is, to test whether the first set of figures collected in 2014 is significantly different from that of the previous survey, both sets of data are rim weighted before testing, instead of using simple computation of the published figures.
[4] Because of sampling errors in conducting the survey(s) and the rounding procedures in processing the data, the figures cannot be too precise, and the totals may not be completely accurate. Therefore, when quoting percentages of the survey(s), journalists should refrain from reporting decimal places, but when quoting the rating figures, one decimal place can be used.
[5] The data of this survey is collected by means of random telephone interviews conducted by real interviewers, not by any interactive voice system (IVS). If a research organization uses "computerized random telephone survey" to camouflage its IVS operation, it should be considered unprofessional.

POP today releases on schedule via the "POP SITE" the latest popularity figures of the top ten Legislative Councillors. From 2014, POP enhanced the previous simple weighting method based on age and gender distribution to "rim weighting" based on age, gender and education (highest level attended) distribution. The latest figures released today have been rim-weighted according to provisional figures obtained from the Census and Statistics Department regarding the gender-age distribution of the Hong Kong population in 2014 mid-year and the educational attainment (highest level attended) distribution collected in the 2011 Census. Herewith the contact information of various surveys:

[6] Errors are calculated at 95% confidence level using full sample size. "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.

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 the highest unprompted mentions in our first stage naming survey conducted from October 6 to 9. In that survey, respondents could name, unaided, up to 10 legislators whom they knew best. As a result, Leung Kwok-hung, Wong Yuk-man, Emily Lau, Alan Leong and Jasper Tsang were mentioned most frequently. Please refer to the relevant table for the rest of the list. Those 12 who were named most frequently then entered into the second stage rating survey. During the second stage rating survey conducted from October 13 to 16, 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 2 legislators in terms of recognition rate were dropped; the remaining 10 were then ranked according to their support ratings attained to become the top 10 Legislative Councillors. For easy reference, the POP Site has already displayed the results of all naming surveys conducted since the year 1998. Recent ratings of top 10 Legislative Councillors are summarized below:

[7] 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 +/-2.8 at 95% confidence level" when quoting the above figures. Numbers in square brackets { } indicates rankings. The error margin of previous survey can be found at the POP Site. Starting from 2011, these questions only use sub-samples of the tracking surveys concerned, with variable sub-sample size for each question. In latest survey, the sub-sample size of the questions varies between 572 and 624, and its effect has already been reflected in the sampling errors.
[8] Such changes have gone beyond the sampling errors at the 95% confidence level under the same weighting method, 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] Ratings with recognition rates not reaching top 10 in either stage of survey are not counted.
[10] In two decimal places, the rating of James Tien is 53.13 and that of Alan Leong is 53.08.
[11] In two decimal places, the rating of Lee Cheuk-yan is 43.28 and that of Emily Lau is 43.26.

The latest survey showed that Jasper Tsang was the most popularly supported councillor attaining 58.5 marks. James To, Alan Leong and Regina Ip ranked the 2nd and 4th with 50.1, 44.8 and 44.6 marks correspondingly. The 5th to 7th ranks went to Lee Cheuk-yan, Emily Lau and Albert Ho who attained 43.3, 43.3 and 40.0 marks respectively. Leung Kwok-hung, Albert Chan and Wong Yuk-man ranked the 8th to 10th, attaining 39.9, 36.5 and 34.3 marks respectively. The mean score obtained by the top 5 councillors was 48.2 marks, while that for the top 10 was 43.5 marks. For this latest survey, Cyd Ho and Tam Yiu-chung obtained support ratings of 45.9 and 43.4 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 calendar months are tabulated as follows:

[12] "Average rating" is the average of all ratings obtained by Legislative Councillors over the past 12 months.
[13] "Overall ranking" is first determined by their number of times on top 10, and then their average ratings.

The overall rankings in the past 12 months showed that 7 Legislative Councillors have been on the list for four times. They are Jasper Tsang at the top rank achieving an average rating of 58.9 marks, Regina Ip, Emily Lau, Lee Cheuk-yan, Albert Ho, Leung Kwok-hung and Wong Yuk-man who ranked the 2nd to 7th and attained 50.4, 46.5, 45.9, 42.5, 37.0 and 34.8 marks correspondingly. Alan Leong and Albert Chan have been on the list for three times and ranked the 8th and 9th, with 48.7 and 37.3 marks correspondingly. James Tien and Tam Yiu-chung have been on the list twice and ranked the 10th and 11th, with 51.5 and 45.0 marks correspondingly. Michael Tien and James To have been on the list once and ranked the 12th and 13th, with 52.6 and 50.1 marks correspondingly.

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 July 14 to 17, 2014, while this survey was conducted from October 13 to 16, 2014. 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, "The latest survey of top 10 Legislative Councillors shows that compared to three months ago, in terms of familiarity, Tam Yiu-chung who ranked sixth last time has dropped out of the 'top 10' list and replaced by James To. In terms of absolute ratings, the scores of 7 out of the 9 who stayed on the list have gone down, 1 has gone up and 1 remains unchanged. Among them, the ratings of Regina Ip, Alan Leong, Emily Lau, Lee Cheuk-yan and Albert Ho have dropped beyond sampling errors. The first four have even dropped to their record lows since 2008, 2006, 1994 and 1995, meaning that the recent mass movement has taken its toll on councilors from all camps. In terms of relative rankings, Jasper Tsang continues to top the list, now for 7 consecutive times since April 2013. James To re-enters the list again since April 2013 and ranks second. Alan Leong remains at the third position. Regina Ip and Emily Lau both go down two positions to rank fourth and sixth respectively. Lee Cheuk-yan, Albert Ho, Leung Kwok-hung, Albert Chan and Wong Yuk-man remain at the fifth, and seventh to tenth positions. It should be noted however that our list of 'top 10' only includes Legco members who are best known to the public, ranked according to their support ratings. Some of the other 60 councillors may well have very high or low support ratings, but because they are not the most well-known councillors, they do not appear on the 'top 10' list by design. We leave it for our readers to figure out the reasons for the ups and downs of these popularity ratings using detailed records shown in our 'Opinion Daily' feature page."

• October 28, 2014 (Tuesday) 1pm to 2pm: Popularity of CE and HKSAR Government