HKU POP SITE releases findings on people's expectation of CE's Policy AddressBack

Press Release on October 13, 2008

Special Announcement

Sponsored by a number of organizations but designed and conducted independently by the Public Opinion Programme (POP) at the University of Hong Kong, findings from the 2008 Legislative Council election exit poll is now available from the "HKU POP SITE" (http://hkupop.pori.hk) for public consumption. Due to the existence of some skeptical cases, POP has decided to eradicate all cases en bloc from polling stations which appear to contain skeptical cases. This means reducing the number of polling stations from 120 to 106, and reducing the number of successful cases from 9,706 to 8,755.

Abstract

POP conducted a double stage survey on people's expectation of CE's Policy Address in late-September and early October, by means of random telephone surveys conducted by real interviewers. The survey finds that economic development is no doubt at the very top of people's priority list, followed by labour and employment, medical policy and then social welfare, with the last three items in very close priorities. Compared to this time last year, those who consider economic development to be 'very important' has surged 29 percentage points, giving an overall importance rate of over 90%, a critical figure way ahead of others. At the other end, those who consider political development to be 'very important' has dropped 9 percentage points, giving an overall importance rate of over 55%, which is the fifth on the list. Put it simple, while political development could not be overlooked, economic development is definitely the key to change the public sentiment. The sampling error of the survey is between +/-1 and +/-4 percentage points at 95% confidence level, response rate of the first stage and second stage survey being 66% and 62% respectively.

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 the first stage survey is 1,027 successful interviews, not 1,027 x 65.9% response rate, while the sample size of the second stage survey is 1,007, not 1,007 x 61.9% response rate. In the past, many media made this mistake.
* The maximum sampling error of all percentages is between +/-1 and 4 percentage points 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. When quoting these figures, journalists can state "sampling error of percentages not more than +/-4% at 95% confidence level".
* When quoting figures of this survey, journalists should refrain from reporting the decimal places, because sampling errors do not entail this kind of precision.
* 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 the POP SITE the latest findings on people's expectation of the fourth Policy Address of CE Donald Tsang. As a general practice, all 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:

Date of survey	Overall sample size	Response rate	Sampling error of percentages*
23-29/9/08 (First Stage)	1,027	65.9%	+/-3%
8-10/10/08 (Second Stage)	1,007	61.9%	+/-3%

* 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. Questions using only sub-samples would have bigger sample error. Sampling errors of ratings are calculated according to the distribution of the scores collected.

According to our first stage survey conducted in late September, when asked to name unaided one issue that CE Donald Tsang should focus on in his fourth Policy Address to be announced this Wednesday, 54% of the respondents wished he would take "economic development" as his first priority, while 10% chose "social welfare" and 9% opted for "labour and employment". Besides, "medical policy", "political development", "education", "housing", "environment" and "transportation" took up 7%, 5%, 4%, 1% and 1% respectively, and 7% of the respondents failed to give a specific answer. Please refer to the "HKU POP SITE" for detailed figures.

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 important it is for each item to be tackled in the Policy Address. Results compared to those of last 2 years are summarized below:

Date of survey	3-6/10/06	2-5/10/07	8-10/10/08		Latest Change
Sample base	1,022	1,008	1,007		--
Sub-sample base	513-515	510	535-536		--
Overall response rate	61.3%	65.4%	61.9%
Maximum sampling error of percentages (at 95 % confidence level)*	+/- 4%	+/- 4%	+/-4%
Finding for each question/Sampling error*	Finding	Finding	Finding	Sampling error	--
Perceived economic development issues as "very important"	50%	46%	75%	+/-4%	+29%#
Perceived economic development issues as "quite important"	33%	36%	16%	+/-3%	-20%#
"Very" + "quite important"**	84%	82%	91%	+/-2%	+9%#
Perceived labour and employment issues as "very important"	62%	61%	61%	+/-4%	--
Perceived labour and employment issues as "quite important"	25%	29%	24%	+/-4%	-5%#
"Very" + "quite important"**	88%	90%	85%	+/-3%	-5%#
Perceived medical policy issues as "very important"	--	--	58%	+/-4%	--
Perceived medical policy issues as "quite important"	--	--	26%	+/-4%	--
"Very" + "quite important"**	--	--	84%	+/-3%	--
Perceived social welfare issues as "very important"	43%	50%	58%	+/-4%	+8%#
Perceived social welfare issues as "quite important"	34%	35%	23%	+/-4%	-12%#
"Very" + "quite important"**	77%	84%	81%	+/-3%	-3%
Perceived political development issues as "very important"	26%	36%	27%	+/-4%	-9%#
Perceived political development issues as "quite important"	32%	34%	30%	+/-4%	-4%
"Very" + "quite important"**	59%	69%	57%	+/-4%	-12%#

"Very" + "quite important"** 59% 69% 57% +/-4% -12%#
* "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" and "quite important" due to the round-off problem.
# 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.

When asked to evaluate each item individually, economic development issue topped the list, as 91% of the respondents said CE Donald Tsang needed to tackle this issue in the coming Policy Address. Labour and employment, medical policy, social welfare and political development issues followed, as 85%, 84%, 81% and 57% thought they needed to be tackled in the Policy Address correspondingly.

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 three years ago. We wanted to study both the absolute and relative importance of different policy items. In our latest surveys, economic development is no doubt at the very top of people's priority list, followed by labour and employment, medical policy and then social welfare, with the last three items in very close priorities. Compared to this time last year, those who consider economic development to be 'very important' has surged 29 percentage points, giving an overall importance rate of over 90%, a critical figure way ahead of others. At the other end, those who consider political development to be 'very important' has dropped 9 percentage points, giving an overall importance rate of over 55%, which is the fifth on the list. Put it simple, while political development could not be overlooked, economic development is definitely the key to change the public sentiment."

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 14, 2008, Tuesday, between 1pm and 2pm, when the latest popularity figures of CE Donald Tsang and Principal Officials will be released. Since CE Donald Tsang will announce his 4th Policy Address on October 15, Wednesday, we will release the survey findings of people's instant reactions towards the Policy Address the next day (October 16, Thursday) between 1pm and 2 pm.

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.

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

Survey on people's expectation of the Policy Address of the CE

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 as well as October 8, 2007. Today we post it again, so that readers can refresh their memory.

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.

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".

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.

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.