HKU POP SITE releases the latest popularity figures of CE Donald Tsang and Principal OfficialsBack
| Press Release on August 12, 2008 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Special Announcement | Abstract | Latest Figures | Opinion Daily | Commentary | News about POP | | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Special Announcement Sponsored by a number of organizations, the Public Opinion Programme (POP) at the University of Hong Kong, has already begun to conduct its rolling poll on the 2008 Legislative Council election. The poll is conducted every day, its findings will be released to sponsors for exclusive use on the same day, and then uploaded onto the "HKU POP SITE" (http://hkupop.pori.hk) for public consumption after the election. Organizations wishing to sponsor this rolling poll please contact Miss Chau or Miss Pang at 3921-2700. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Abstract The Public Opinion Programme at the University of Hong Kong interviewed 1,009 Hong Kong people between 1-4 August by means of a random telephone survey conducted by real interviewers. The survey finds that compared to mid-July, our latest survey shows that CE Donald Tsang's support rating has slightly increased while his approval rate has slightly dropped, but both within sampling errors. In other words, comparing the overall figures registered in last two consecutive surveys, the dropping trend of Donald Tsang's popularity has somewhat stopped. However, because the last survey accidentally fell before and after CE announced his over $10 billion package of 10 relief measures in the Legislative Council on July 16, if we use the figures differentially registered before and after that announcement, CE's current support rating and approval rate are significantly lower than the 56.1 marks and 48% registered on July 16. This shows that the popularity effect of the relief measures was quite short. Moreover, if we look at the result of our biannual survey on CE performance, only about one-third of the people now consider Donald Tsang doing a good job, representing a plunge of 24 percentage points over 6 months. As for the Secretaries of Departments and Directors of Bureaux under the accountability system, compared to early July, changes in approval rates of the following officials are significant beyond sampling errors: Secretary for the Environment Edward Yau's approval rate surged 8 percentage points, while those of Secretary for Transport and Housing Eva Cheng and Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury Ceajer Chan both increased by 5 percentage points. According to the benchmarks set by POP quite some time ago, the performance of Ambrose Lee can continue to be labeled as 'ideal', that of Wong Yan-lung, Henry Tang and Matthew Cheung can be labeled as 'successful', that of John Tsang, Carrie Lam, Donald Tsang, York Chow, Michael Suen, Stephen Lam and Tsang Tak-sing can be labeled as 'mediocre', and that of Eva Cheng, Denise Yue, Edward Yau, Ceajer Chan and Rita Lau can be labeled as 'inconspicuous'. No official falls under the categories of 'depressing' or 'disastrous'. The sampling error of all approval and disapproval rates is below +/-2 to 5 percentage points at 95% confidence level, while the sampling error of rating figures needs another calculation. The response rate of the survey is 69%. Points to note: * The address of the "HKU POP SITE" is http://hkupop.pori.hk, journalists can check out the details of the survey there. * The sample size of this survey is 1,009 successful interviews, not 1,009 x 69.0% response rate. In the past, many media made this mistake. * The maximum sampling error of all approval and disapproval rates is below +/-2 to 5 percentage points at 95% confidence level, while the sampling error of rating figures needs another calculation. "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 error of various ratings not more than +/-1.3 and sampling error of percentages not more than +/-5% at 95% confidence level". * When quoting percentages of this survey, journalists should refrain from reporting decimal places, but when quoting the rating figures, one decimal place can be used, in order to match the precision level of the figures. * 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. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Latest Figures POP today releases on schedule via POP SITE the latest popularity figures of CE Donald Tsang and Principal Officials under the accountability system. 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 2007 year-end. Herewith the contact information for the latest survey:
As different questions involve different sub-samples, the sample errors will vary accordingly. The table below briefly shows the relationship between sample size and maximum sampling errors for the readers to capture the corresponding changes:
"Maximum sampling errors" occur when survey figures are close to 50%. If the figures are close to 0% or 100%, the sampling error will diminish accordingly. The sampling errors of ratings, however, will depend on the distribution of the raw figures. Since January 2007, POP lists out the sampling errors of all survey figures in detail and explain them in due course. Recent popularity figures of Donald Tsang are summarized as follows:
** Collapsed from a 5-point scale. ^ The polling cycle for this item is different from the rest. The last survey was conducted in February 2008 and the positive and negative figures were 56% and 9% back then. Figures on the latest popularity ratings of the three Secretaries of Departments under the accountability system are summarized below:
** "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 +/-1.1, sampling error of percentages not more than +/-3% at 95% confidence level" when quoting the above figures. Figures on the latest popularity ratings of Directors of Bureaux under the accountability system are summarized below:
** "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 +/-5% at 95% confidence level" when quoting the above figures. The latest survey showed that, CE Donald Tsang scored 54.8 marks, and 43% supported him as the Chief Executive. By using a 5-point scale, 32% of the respondents thought Tsang was doing a good job as the CE, while 26% held the opposite view. Meanwhile, the corresponding ratings of CS Henry Tang Ying-yen, FS John Tsang Chun-wah and SJ Wong Yan-lung were 59.1, 57.6 and 60.7 marks, and 51%, 47% and 58% would vote for their reappointment correspondingly. As for the Directors of Bureaux, results revealed that the top approval rate fell to Secretary for Security Ambrose Lee Siu-kwong, attaining 68%. Secretary for Labour and Welfare Matthew Cheung Kin-chung and Secretary for Development Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor, occupied the 2nd and 3rd ranks with respective support rates of 50% and 45%. The 4th to 8th ranks went to Secretary for Food and Health York Chow Yat-ngok, Secretary for Education Michael Suen Ming-yeung, Secretary for Transport and Housing Eva Cheng Yu-wah, Secretary for the Civil Service Denise Yue Chung-yee and Secretary for Environment Edward Yau Tang-wah as they gained 42%, 41%, 39%, 34% and 32% vote of confidence from the public respectively. Meanwhile, Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Stephen Lam Sui-lung and Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury Ceajer Chan Ka-keung occupied the 9th to 10th ranks with respective support rates of 31% and 29%. Secretary for Home Affairs Tsang Tak-sing and Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development Rita Lau Ng Wai-lan occupied the 11th and 12th rank, achieving 27% and 22%. In other words, only Ambrose Lee Siu-kwong and Matthew Cheung Kin-chung scored approval rates of over 50% among all Directors of Bureaux. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Opinion Daily 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. Our purpose is to provide readers with accurate information so that they can judge by themselves the reasons for the ups and downs of different opinion figures. When "Opinion Daily" began to operate on January 17, 2007, it only contained significant events and popularity figures of the Chief Executive over the past few months. As of today, it contains a chronology of events starting from May 1, 2006, and many poll figures registered since January 1, 2006. Readers can now 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, the content of "Opinion Daily" will continue to expand, in order to promote the science of opinion polling. In July 2007, POP collaborated with Wisers Information Limited whereby Wisers supplies to POP since July 24 each day a record of significant events of that day, according to the 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. In August 2007, POP began to include in its regular press releases a list of significant events which happened in between two surveys, so that readers can make their own judgment on whether these events have any effect on the ups and downs of the polling figures. This press release is no exception. For the polling items covered in this press release, using the previous survey as a reference point for comparison, our "Opinion Daily" for this release starts on August 11, 2007, because the previous survey of some items was conducted from February 1 to 5, 2008 while this survey was conducted from August 1 to 4, 2008. During this period, 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.
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| Commentary (Note: The following commentary was written by Director of POP Robert Chung.) Compared to mid-July, our latest survey shows that CE Donald Tsang's support rating has slightly increased while his approval rate has slightly dropped, but both within sampling errors. In other words, comparing the overall figures registered in last two consecutive surveys, the dropping trend of Donald Tsang's popularity has somewhat stopped. However, because the last survey accidentally fell before and after CE announced his over $10 billion package of 10 relief measures in the Legislative Council on July 16, if we use the figures differentially registered before and after that announcement, CE's current support rating and approval rate are significantly lower than the 56.1 marks and 48% registered on July 16. This shows that the popularity effect of the relief measures was quite short. Moreover, if we look at the result of our biannual survey on CE performance, only about one-third of the people now consider Donald Tsang doing a good job, representing a plunge of 24 percentage points over 6 months. As for the Secretaries of Departments and Directors of Bureaux under the accountability system, compared to early July, changes in approval rates of the following officials are significant beyond sampling errors: Secretary for the Environment Edward Yau's approval rate surged 8 percentage points, while those of Secretary for Transport and Housing Eva Cheng and Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury Ceajer Chan both increased by 5 percentage points. According to the benchmarks set by us quite some time ago, the performance of Ambrose Lee can continue to be labeled as 'ideal', that of Wong Yan-lung, Henry Tang and Matthew Cheung can be labeled as 'successful', that of John Tsang, Carrie Lam, Donald Tsang, York Chow, Michael Suen, Stephen Lam and Tsang Tak-sing can be labeled as 'mediocre', and that of Eva Cheng, Denise Yue, Edward Yau, Ceajer Chan and Rita Lau can be labeled as 'inconspicuous'. No official falls under the categories of 'depressing' or 'disastrous'. As for the reasons affecting the popularity change of these officials, readers can make their own judgment using detailed records shown in our 'Opinion Daily' feature page. The following table summarizes the grading of the principal officials for readers' easy reference:
Starting last year, a new grading system was adopted for the HKCEE Chinese Language and English Language, whereby the old 'pulling curve' system using a six-grade norm reference approach was replaced by a standard-referenced approach with six grades from Level '1' to '5*'. This should have deepened people's understanding of the standard-referenced approach, which is fairly similar to POP's grading system of principal officials. We therefore would not object to community members using Level '1' to '5*' to describe the popularity of principle officials. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 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 August 19, 2008, Tuesday, between 1 pm and 2 pm, when the latest figures on subjective social and rule of law indicators will be released. POP will also follow the rhythm of the WorldPublicOpinion.org (WPO) to globally release the Chinese versions of WPO's press releases regularly, via our "World Public Opinion Platform" accessible through our POP Site and the "Hong Kong People's Opinion Platform" at http://www.hkpop.hk. 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. 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 surveys of CE and principal officials In advanced democratic countries, the popularity of top leaders and principal officials is the crux of all opinion polls. Shortly after HKUPOP was established, we started to conduct surveys on these aspects. We have explained the development of these surveys in our press releases of October 31, 2006, January 16 and 31, February 8, March 13, June 12, August 14, September 11, October 16, November 13, December 11, 2007, February 12, March 11, April 8, May 13, June 10 as well as July 8, 2008. Today, we post it again, so that readers can review such development. (1) Development of CE's popularity survey
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| | Special Announcement | Abstract | Latest Figures | Opinion Daily | Commentary | News about POP | | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
