HKU POP SITE releases the results of follow-up survey of Policy AddressBack
| Press Release on October 21, 2008 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Special Announcement | Abstract | Background | Latest Figures | Commentary | News about POP | About HKUPOP | | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Special Announcement Starting from July this year, the Public Opinion Programme (POP) at the University of Hong Kong has been responsible for designing and maintaining the Chinese homepage of the WorldPublicOpinion.org (WPO). WPO was initiated and managed by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland. At present WPO consists of research centers from over 20 countries or regions. The English website of the WPO is located at http://www.worldpublicopinion.org, while its Chinese website is located at http://wpo.hkpop.hk which can be accessed via the HKU POP Site at http://hkupop.pori.hk or Hong Kong People's Opinion Platform at http://www.hkpop.hk. WPO will soon release another round of international polling results, including findings from the Greater China Region. Please stay alert. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Abstract POP interviewed 505 Hong Kong people between 17 and 19 October 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 has dropped to 19% in our second survey, dissatisfaction rate has increased to 31%, while its overall rating has dropped to 52.4 marks. In other words, after some initial discussions, people's appraisal of the Policy Address has turned negative. In terms of its theme, most people agree that "Embracing New Challenges" meets the need of society. However, among the 4 major challenges spelled out by the CE himself, namely, dealing with external economic environment, balancing social interests, meeting public demands for a quality life and winning the public's trust in the government, our survey shows that the public is only confident in CE Donald Tsang's ability in handling the economic challenge. For the remaining three, those who think that Donald Tsang can beat the challenge in the year ahead are 26 to 51 percentage points lower than those who think he cannot. Our survey also finds that over 60% disagreed to CE's proposal to introduce a means test mechanism to Old Age Allowance applications, only 30% agreed. This may have affected people's satisfaction of the Policy Address to some extent. According to our tracking survey of people's satisfaction with Donald Tsang's policy direction, a record low figure is recorded since Tsang became CE. Compared to figures registered two months ago, we conclude that the Policy Address has failed to boost people satisfaction with CE's policy direction in general. The sampling error of all percentages is between +/-2 and 4 percentage points at 95% confidence level, while the sampling error of rating figure is +/-1.6. The response rate of the survey is 71%. 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 505 successful interviews, not 505 x 70.9% response rate. In the past, many media made this mistake. * The maximum sampling error of all percentages is between +/-2 and 4 percentage points at 95% confidence level, while the sampling error of rating figure is +/-1.6. "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 rating not more than +/-1.6 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, POP has been conducting Policy Address instant surveys every year. From 1998 onwards, we expanded our instant surveys to cover the Budget Talks. Starting from 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. Two days later, we started to conduct our second survey, which mainly studies people's reactions towards different government proposals, and any change in their satisfaction of the Policy Address. The findings of our instant survey were already released on October 16. We release the results of our second today. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Latest Figures The findings of the second round survey of Policy Address released by 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:
Results of the second round survey of Policy Address, together with the instant poll, are tabulated below:
** Collapsed from a 5-point scale. ^ Excluding respondents who were not clear about the Policy Address. The sub-sample size was 515. # 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. Latest survey revealed that 19% of the respondents were satisfied with the Policy Address and 31% were dissatisfied. The average rating registered for the Policy Address was 52.4 marks. With respect to people's specific reactions towards the contents of this year's Policy Address, relevant findings are summarized below:
Results showed that 57% thought the theme of the Policy Address "Embracing New Challenges" concurred with the current needs of the society while 24% did not think so. Besides, Donald Tsang said Hong Kong was then facing 4 major challenges, including how to deal with severe external economic environment, balance social interests, win the public's trust in the government and meet public demands for a quality life. Findings showed that a respective of 42%, 23%, 21% and 13% of respondents believed he could successfully beat the above four challenges whereas 33%, 53%, 47% and 64% held an opposite view in corresponding order. Regarding Donald Tsang's proposal of introducing a means test mechanism to Old Age Allowance applicants, 30% agreed to his proposal while 61% disagreed. Respondents' appraisal of Donald Tsang's policy direction is summarized as follows:
** Collapsed from a 5-point scale. # 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. As for people's satisfaction with Donald Tsang's policy direction, 22% of the respondents showed satisfaction while 32% were not satisfied. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 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. It so happens that less than a day after CE Donald Tsang delivered his Policy Address, from 09:00 to 10:30 Hong Kong Time the following day, 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 respondents who had some knowledge of the Address, 31% said they were satisfied. However, in our second survey, the figure drops to 19%, while dissatisfaction rate increases from 26% to 31%, while the overall rating of the Address also drops from 53.8 to 52.4, close to the error margin. In other words, after some initial discussions, people's appraisal of the Policy Address has turned negative. POP will conduct another round of follow-up survey to map people's further reaction. In terms of its theme, most people agree that "Embracing New Challenges" meets the need of society. However, among the 4 major challenges spelled out by the CE himself, namely, dealing with external economic environment, balancing social interests, meeting public demands for a quality life and winning the public's trust in the government, our survey shows that the public is only confident in CE Donald Tsang's ability in handling the economic challenge. For the remaining three, those who think that Donald Tsang can beat the challenge in the year ahead are 26 to 51 percentage points lower than those who think he cannot. Because CE's proposal to introduce a means test mechanism to Old Age Allowance applications has generated widespread discussion, we have also included this question in our survey. The result is, over 60% disagreed to the proposal, only 30% agreed. This may have affected people's satisfaction of the Policy Address to some extent. Finally, on our tracking question of people's satisfaction with Donald Tsang's policy direction, a record low figure is recorded since Tsang became CE. Compared to figures registered two months ago, we conclude that the Policy Address has failed to boost people satisfaction with CE's policy direction in general. POP will release another round of Policy Address survey findings in about 10 days' time. Whether public opinion would change around many rounds of discussion remains to be seen. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 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 23, Thursday, between 1pm and 2pm, when people's appraisal of local news media will be released. Then on October 28, 2008, Tuesday, between 1pm and 2pm, POP will release the latest popularity figures of CE Donald Tsang and the HKSAR Government. 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 the second round survey of Policy Address 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 release of October 12, 2006, October 11, 2007 and October 16, 2008. Today we introduce the development of the second round survey of Policy Address.
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| | Special Announcement | Abstract | Background | Latest Figures | Commentary | News about POP | About HKUPOP | | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
