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According to our survey conducted in late September, when asked to name unaided one issue that CE Donald Tsang should focus on in his third Policy Address to be announced this Wednesday, 33% of the respondents wished he would take "economic development" as his first priority, while 15% chose "labour and employment" and 14% opted for "social welfare". Besides, "education", "political development", "medical policy" and "environment" took up 7%, 5%, 5% and 4% respectively, and 13% of the respondents failed to give a specific answer.
In order to further study people's expectations, another survey was conducted in early October whereby respondents were asked to evaluate each of the 5 top priority items individually, on a 5-point scale, how necessary each item has to be tackled in the Policy Address. While the main results, when compared with last 2 years, are summarized below, please refer to the "HKU POP SITE" for detailed figures:
| Date of survey |
3-6/10/05 |
3-6/10/06 |
2-5/10/07 |
Latest Change |
| Sample base |
1,010 |
1,022 |
1,008 |
-- |
| Sub-sample base |
527 |
513-515 |
510 |
-- |
| Overall response rate |
64.2% |
61.3% |
65.4% |
|
Maximum sampling error of percentages
(at 95 % confidence level)* |
+/- 4% |
+/- 4% |
+/- 4% |
|
| Finding for each question/Sampling error* |
Finding |
Finding |
Finding |
Sampling error |
-- |
| Perceived education issues are "very necessary" to be tackled |
57% |
57% |
60% |
+/-4% |
+3% |
| Perceived education issues are "quite necessary" to be tackled |
29% |
29% |
30% |
+/-4% |
+1% |
| Perceived education issues are "very necessary" and "quite necessary" to be tackled** |
87% |
86% |
90%*** |
+/-3% |
+4% |
| Perceived labour and employment issues are "very necessary" to be tackled |
68% |
62% |
61% |
+/-4% |
-1% |
| Perceived labour and employment issues are "quite necessary" to be tackled |
25% |
25% |
29% |
+/-4% |
+4% |
| Perceived labour and employment issues are "very necessary" and "quite necessary" to be tackled** |
93% |
88% |
90%*** |
+/-3% |
+2% |
| Perceived social welfare issues are "very necessary" to be tackled |
53% |
43% |
50% |
+/-4% |
+7% |
| Perceived social welfare issues are "quite necessary" to be tackled |
29% |
34% |
35% |
+/-4% |
+1% |
| Perceived social welfare issues are "very necessary" and "quite necessary" to be tackled** |
82% |
77% |
84% |
+/-3% |
+7% |
| Perceived economic development issues are "very necessary" to be tackled |
61% |
50% |
46% |
+/-4% |
-4% |
| Perceived economic development issues are "quite necessary" to be tackled |
28% |
33% |
36% |
+/-4% |
+3% |
| Perceived economic development issues are "very necessary" and "quite necessary" to be tackled** |
89% |
84% |
82% |
+/-3% |
-2% |
| Perceived political development issues are "very necessary" to be tackled |
26% |
26% |
36% |
+/-4% |
+10% |
| Perceived political development issues are "quite necessary" to be tackled |
37% |
32% |
34% |
+/-4% |
+2% |
| Perceived political development issues are "very necessary" and "quite necessary" to be tackled** |
64% |
59% |
69% |
+/-4% |
+10% |
| Perceived medical policy issues are "very necessary" to be tackled**** |
59% |
-- |
-- |
-- |
-- |
| Perceived medical policy issues are "quite necessary" to be tackled **** |
27% |
-- |
-- |
-- |
-- |
| Perceived medical policy issues are "very necessary" and "quite necessary" to be tackled**** |
86% |
-- |
-- |
-- |
-- |
* "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 percentages not more than +/-4% at 95% confidence level" when quoting the above figures.
** Percentages in this column may not be equal to the sum of percentages shown in the columns of "very necessary" and "quite necessary" due to the round-off problem.
*** "Education" wins by decimal points.
**** It was impossible to diffentiate the 5th position in the first stage survey in 2005, hence there were 6 items in the second stage.
When asked to evaluate each item individually, education as well as labour and employment issues topped the list, as 90% of the respondents said CE Donald Tsang needed to tackle these two issues in the coming Policy Address. Social welfare, economic development and political development issues followed, as 84%, 82% and 69% thought they need to be tackled in the Policy Address correspondingly. |
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Commentary
Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of Public Opinion Programme, explained, "In order to measure public opinion more accurately, we began to use a two-stage design to study people's expectation of the upcoming Policy Address two years ago. We wanted to study both the relative and absolute importance of different policy items. In our latest survey, when people were not prompted with specific answers, one-third of them chose economic development as the most pressing policy area to be handled in the next Policy Address, putting it at the top of the list. However, after people were asked to rate individual items, education and labour problems became the most 'pressing' issues, both with 90% 'importance' rates. Social welfare and economic development came third and fourth, with 80% to 85% 'importance' rates. Political development came fifth, with about 70%. Compared to last year's survey, the urgency of tackling political development and social welfare has significantly increased, the urgency of tackling education has slightly increased, while the urgency of tackling labour and economic problems has remained more or less the same."
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 October 9, 2006, Tuesday, between 1pm and 2pm, when the first round District Council election survey will be released. Since CE Donald Tsang will announce his second Policy Address on October 10, Wednesday, we will release the survey findings of people's instant reactions towards the Policy Address the next day (October 11, Thursday) between 1pm and 2 pm.
Our general practice is 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.
Starting from January 2006, we have included in our regular press releases a small educational section for the purpose of general civic education, so that we can share our experience with the general public. The subject of our education section today is "About HKUPOP".
About HKUPOP
After the handover of Hong Kong in 1997, POP concurrently measures people's expectation of the Policy Address of the CE, as one of the indicators of people's recognition of CE's policy. Although the survey had only one stage at the beginning, and then expanded into 2 stages in September 2005, the testing objective and frequency of the surveys still remained unchanged from the first CE, Tung Chee-hwa's era, to the second CE Donald Tsang. Regarding the development of our survey on "people's expectation of CE's Policy Address", we have explained it in our press release of October 9, 2006. Today we post it again, so that readers can refresh their memory.
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After the handover of Hong Kong, HKUPOP began our first survey on people's expectation of CE's policy address in September 1997 after Tung Chee-hwa became the first CE. The survey results were announced before the CE presented his Policy Address every October. Until September 2005, right before the second CE, Donald Tsang, presented his first Policy Address, the survey was split into two stages. From the beginning to its end, the survey on "people's expectation of CE's Policy Address" is conducted once every year.
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When the first CE presented his Policy Address, which was also when the survey was only consist of one stage, the question wordings used in the questionnaire were "CE will announce his X policy address. Which issue do you think he should tackle first?". Since 2005, the survey was split into two stages. In stage one, the same question wordings are used in the questionnaire. Then in stage two, the question wordings used in the questionnaire are "CE XXX will announce his X policy address. How necessary do you think he should tackle YYY?" Interviewers then probe respondents' degree of necessity for each item and respondents can choose a single response ranged from "very necessary", "quite necessary", "half-half", "not quite necessary" to "very unnecessary".
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Regarding sample size, from the beginning to September 1999, the sample size of surveys was set at slightly over 500. After October 2000, the sample size was increased to at least 1000. For the two-staged surveys since 2005, the sample size was at least 1,000 for stage one and 500 for stage two.
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The findings from our surveys on "people's expectation of CE's Policy Address" released on or before October 1997 were published in our newsletter POP Express. After our HKU POP Site was established in June 2000, the findings on people's expectation of the first CE Policy Addresses were released online since October 2001. All previous findings published in our POP Express were also uploaded on-line in various formats. As for the second CE's Policy Addresses, all findings were released online since October 2005.
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