HKU POP SITE releases findings of an instant poll on Policy AddressBack
| Press Release on October 16, 2008 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Abstract | Background | Latest Figures | Commentary | News about POP | About HKUPOP | | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Abstract The Public Opinion Programme at the University of Hong Kong interviewed 1,011 Hong Kong people last night (15 October, 2008) by means of a random telephone survey conducted by real interviewers. The survey finds that people's satisfaction with CE Donald Tsang's fourth Policy Address is 21 percentage points lower than that of last year, but is somewhat similar to that in 2006. On a scale of 0-100, they gave 53.8 marks to the Address, which is also similar to that in 2006. As for CE Donald Tsang's popularity, after giving his Address, his support rating has gone up slightly, his approval rate remains the same, while his disapproval rate has gone down significantly. This means the Address has a slightly positive effect on CE's popularity. However, after excluding those who said they did not know the content of the policy address, 23% said their confidence in the future of Hong Kong had increased, 32% said their confidence had dropped, while 38% said "no change". This shows that the Address has failed to increase people's confidence. Robert Chung, Director of Public Opinion Programme, however, praised CE Donald Tsang for swiftly and actively communicating with people directly after delivering his Address this year, through various forums, phone-in programmes, and question-and-answer sessions. Their effects, however, could only be told by our next survey. The sampling error of all percentages is below +/-2 to 4 percentage points at 95% confidence level, while the sampling error of rating figures needs another calculation. The response rate of the survey is 75%. 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 1,011 successful interviews, not 1,011 x 74.9% response rate. In the past, many media made this mistake. * The maximum sampling error of all percentages is below +/-2 to 4 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 +/-2.0 and sampling error of percentages not more than +/-4% 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. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Background Since 1992, HKUPOP has been conducting Policy Address instant surveys every year. From 1998 onwards, we expanded our instant surveys to cover the Budget Talks. Starting 2008, we split up previous years' instant survey into two surveys. In our first survey, we measure people's overall appraisal of the Policy Address, their rating of the Policy Address, their change in confidence towards Hong Kong's future, and CE's popularity. In our second survey, we focus on people's reactions towards different government proposals, their satisfaction with CE's policy direction, and other relevant issues. The instant survey released today is our first release under our new operation. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Latest Figures The findings of the Policy Address instant poll released by the POP SITE today 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 mid-2008. Herewith the contact information of various surveys:
Recent figures on Donald Tsang's popularity are summarized as follows:
** Starting from 2008, these questions only uses sub-samples of the tracking surveys concerned. The sub-sample sizes of questions on CE's support rating and hypothetical voting were 687 and 671 respectively. # 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. The install poll conducted last night showed that, after CE Donald Tsang announced his Policy Address, his latest rating registered was 53.9 marks, with an approval and disapproval rate of 44% and 34% respectively. In terms of people's satisfaction of the Policy Address, the figures are summarized below:
** Collapsed from a 5-point scale. # Excluding respondents who said they would not answer because they had not heard of / did not know the details of the Policy Address. Because of the smaller sample size, the sampling error has increased accordingly. ^ The 2003 Policy Address instant poll was conducted for two days. Only figures registered in the first day of fieldwork are listed in this table for direct comparison and analysis. Aggregate results are available in our "HKU POP SITE". After excluding those respondents who said they did not know the details of the Policy Address, this year's instant survey showed that 31% were satisfied with it, 26% were dissatisfied and 35% said "half-half" while the average rating registered for the Policy Address was 53.8 marks. Because part of the respondents said they were not familiar with the Policy Address during the instant poll, the valid sub-sample of this item was smaller. The sampling error for this question has increased accordingly. The survey also gauged the change of people's confidence towards Hong Kong's future after CE Donald Tsang has delivered his Policy Address. Results are as follows:
# Excluding respondents who said they would not answer because they had not heard of / don't know the details of the Policy Address. Because of the smaller sample size, the sampling error has increased accordingly. ^ The 2003 Policy Address instant poll was conducted for two days. Only figures registered in the first day of fieldwork are listed in this table for direct comparison and analysis. Aggregate results are available in our "HKU POP SITE". Results showed that, excluding those who said they would not answer because they did not know the content of the Policy Address, 23% said their confidence in the future of Hong Kong had increased, 38% opted for "no change", whilst 32% said their confidence had dropped. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Commentary Note: The following commentary was written by Director of POP Robert Chung. Since 1992, HKUPOP has been conducting Policy Address instant surveys every year. From 1998 onwards, we expanded our instant surveys to cover the Budget Talks. In February this year after the Budget Talk, we modified our instant survey operation by splitting it into two. Our first round of survey would concentrate on satisfaction rates and related ratings, while our second round would focus on specific policy proposals. Our purpose is to shorten the time of our operation to collect opinion data for public consumption. In free and democratic societies, instant surveys are indispensable sources of free information. Combined with appropriate follow-up surveys, and in parallel to expert analyses, they give a multi-dimensional picture of opinion development. They are an important part of a society's interactive development. Today at 09:00 to 10:30 Hong Kong Time, it so happens that the American presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain had their final television debate. At 10:27, CBS announced its instant poll result to show that Obama has won the debate. Locally, some critics have repeatedly said that instant polls are useless. Maybe they should also study the situation overseas. According to our Policy Address instant survey, among the over 500 respondents who have some knowledge of the Address, 31% said they were satisfied, down 21 percentage points from that of last year, but somewhat similar to that in 2006. On a scale of 0-100, they gave 53.8 marks to the Address, which is also similar to that in 2006. As for CE Donald Tsang's popularity, after giving his Address, his support rating has gone up slightly, his approval rate remains the same, while his disapproval rate has gone down significantly. This means the Address has a slightly positive effect on CE's popularity. However, after excluding those who said they did not know the content of the Policy Address, 23% said their confidence in the future of Hong Kong had increased, 32% said their confidence had dropped, while 38% said "no change". This shows that the Address has failed to increase people's confidence. What needs to be praised is that CE Donald Tsang, after delivering his Address this year, has swiftly and actively communicated with people directly, through various forums, phone-in programmes, and question-and-answer sessions. Their effects would be told by our next survey. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 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 21, Tuesday, between 1pm and 2pm, when the results of second round of Policy Address Survey will be released. Then on October 23, 2008, Thursday, between 1pm and 2pm, POP will release latest results of people's appraisal of local news media. 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 The development and operation of Policy Address instant surveys HKUPOP was established in 1991, we began our first Policy Address instant survey in October 1992, and our operation has not changed much since then. By "instant survey", we mean a survey which begins on the same day when the Policy Address is announced, in order to gauge the immediate reaction of the people. We have explained the development of our Policy Address instant surveys in our press releases of October 12, 2006 and October 11, 2007. Today we post it again, so that readers can refresh their memory.
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| | Abstract | Background | Latest Figures | Commentary | News about POP | About HKUPOP | | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
