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Since January 2007, the Public Opinion Programme (POP) at the University of Hong Kong has launched a feature page called "Opinion Daily" at the "HKU POP SITE"
(http://hkupop.pori.hk). It records significant events on a daily basis, as well as provides certain opinion poll figures on those separate days. Our purpose is to provide accurate information for readers to judge by themselves the reasons for the ups and downs of opinion figures. "Opinion Daily" began to operate on January 17, 2007. At the beginning, it only recorded significant events and the popularity figures of the Chief Executive for the previous few months. As of today, it gives a chronology of events back from July 1, 2006, and many other poll figures since January 1, 2006, and its content is ever increasing.
In July 2007, POP collaborated with Wisers Information Limited whereby Wisers supplies to POP since July 24 on a daily basis a record of significant events of the day, according to a research method designed by POP. These daily entries would be uploaded to the "Opinion Daily" feature page as soon as they are verified by POP, in order to provide readers with swifter and more accurate information.
Starting today, other than reading the chronology of significant events, readers can also check on the results of 9 different polling items compiled by POP, including the popularity of the Chief Executive, the HKSAR government, and the Secretaries of Departments under the accountability system. In near future, "Opinion Daily" will be regularly updated and expanded in order to promote the science of opinion polling.
Besides, since mid-August 2007, in POP's regular press releases, we have listed some of the more significant events which happened in between two surveys for readers to make their own judgment whether these events have any effect on polling figure changes.
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Commentary
Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of Public Opinion Programme, observed, "Our survey shows that people's satisfaction with the SAR Government as well as their support rating of CE Donald Tsang have both fluctuated within sampling errors over the past month. However, their support of Donald Tsang as the Chief Executive has significantly dropped in the last half-month, as the percentage of neutral opinion increased. As for the reasons, readers can make their own judgment using our detailed records displayed in our "Opinion Daily". It may be worth noting that Donald Tsang was on leave between 9 and 19 August, and Henry Tang was the Acting CE during that period. This might have affected the results."
News about POP
POP's normal practice is to release the results of our regular surveys every Tuesday afternoon via our POP Site, except during public holidays, each time with a forecast of the items to be released in the next 7 days. According to schedule, our next release of regular survey findings will be September 4, 2007, Tuesday, between 1pm to 2pm, when the latest figures on subjective social and rule of law indicators will be released.
It is our general practice to answer all questions on the research design of the surveys published in the POP Site as soon as we receive them, but we will not further comment on the findings. We welcome questions for follow-up purpose, please email them to us at <[email protected]>. We will keep such an arrangement under constant review, suggestions most welcome. Please note that everything carried in the POP Site does not represent the stand of the University of Hong Kong. Dr Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of POP, is responsible for everything posted herewith, except for column articles which represent the stand of their authors.
For the whole of last year, we have included in our regular press releases a small educational section for the purpose of sharing our research experience with the readers and the general public, and the subject of our education section today is "About HKUPOP". In the near future, we will keep on stepping up our effort in promoting general civic education to enhance our POP Site accordingly.
About HKUPOP
Popularity survey of CE and the HKSAR Government
One important aspect of opinion polling around the world is to monitor people's appraisal of the top leader and overall satisfaction with the government. Shortly after HKUPOP was established, we started to conduct surveys on these aspects. We explained the development of these surveys in our press releases of October 31 and November 28, 2006, January 30 as well as March 6, 2007. Today, we post it, so that readers can refresh such development.
(1) Development of CE's popularity survey
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From its establishment to the handover of Hong Kong, POP has continually conducted surveys to measure the popularity rating of Governor Chris Patten. After the handover when Tung Chee-hwa became the first Chief Executive in 1997, we began our popularity survey of CE Tung Chee-hwa. After Tung resigned and Donald Tsang succeeded, POP has begun to measure Tsang's popularity. The frequency of our surveys was at least once every month during the Patten era. It was then increased to three times per month when Tung became CE, until the end of 1997. From January 1998 onwards, it was reduced to twice every month.
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The question wordings used in "popularity of Governor or CE" survey are: "Please use a scale of 0-100 to rate your extent of support to the Governor/ the Chief Executive XXX, with 0 indicating absolutely not supportive, 100 indicating absolutely supportive and 50 indicating half-half. How would you rate the Chief Executive XXX?" and "If a general election of the Chief Executive were to be held tomorrow, and you had the right to vote, would you vote for
XXX?".
(2) Development of people's satisfaction with CE's policy direction
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HKUPOP was established in 1991, we began to record people's satisfaction of Governor Chris Patten's policy address ever since he gave his first one in October 1992. The question used then was: "On the whole, how satisfied are you with XXX's policy address?" We used this question up to September 2002, shortly before Tung Chee-hwa delivered his first policy address of his second session. Meanwhile, POP continued to develop other indicators of policy satisfaction, including "people's satisfaction with CE's policy direction" since July 1997, "hypothetical voting on XXX as the CE" and "people's appraisal of CE's job performance", both since February 2002. Our frequent CE rating exercise continues, and Donald Tsang's becoming the CE did not change our operation. Our effort to search and test for the best method to study people's satisfaction of public policies continues up to this date. The frequency of our "people's satisfaction with CE's policy direction" survey was at least once every two months during the Tung Chee-hwa era. It was then changed to at least once every six months since Donald Tsang became CE.
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The question wordings used in "people's satisfaction with CE's policy direction" survey are: "Are you satisfied with XXX's policy direction?".
(3) Development of people's satisfaction with the HKSAR Government survey
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The survey on people's satisfaction with the HKSAR Government was started in July 1997. Since then, it has been conducted once every month.
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The question wordings used in the questionnaire are: "Are you satisfied with the overall performance of the HKSAR Government?".
Before April 2000, the sample size of our regular surveys was set at slightly over 500. After that, it was increased to at least 1,000. The above surveys are of no exception. All the above findings are now released on POP Site on a regular basis. Previous findings published in our newsletter POP Express have also been uploaded online in various formats.
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