HKU POP SITE releases the latest ratings of the top 10 political groupsBack
| Press Release on December 2, 2008 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Abstract | Latest Figures | Opinion Daily | Commentary | News about POP | | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Abstract POP conducted a double stage survey on the ranking of the top 10 political groups last month, by means of random telephone surveys conducted by real interviewers. The surveys find that other than LP and DP, the ratings of all other political groups have fluctuated within sampling errors. Compared to 3 months ago, the rating of LP has plunged 6.4 marks to 41.0, which is record low since POP started to measure the rating of LP and its predecessor Co-operative Resources Centre since May 1992. This record low is obviously due to LP's failure in its election bid and its internal division after that. At the other end, the rating of DP has significantly increased 1.8 marks to 49.5, after absorbing the majority of Frontier members. As for yet to be dissolved Frontier itself, its rating has not changed much. In terms of relative rankings, FTU continues to top the list, while CTU and CP swap positions to become 2nd and 3rd respectively. ADPL continues to rank 4th, while DP and DAB also swap positions to become 5th and 6th. Frontier advances one position to become 7th, LSD passes the recognition benchmark for the first time to become 8th, LP drops two positions to become 9th, while APA continues to remain at the bottom. Had Frontier been dissolved according to its plan, Worker's Service Centre would have entered 'Top 10' and ranked 4th, overtaking ADPL. However, Frontier continues to exist, so WSC keeps lingering below the recognition benchmark. The sampling errors of the ratings registered fall between +/-1.4 and 2.0 while the response rate of the rating survey is 67%. 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 naming survey is 1,012 successful interviews, not 1,012 x 69.1% response rate, while the sample size of the second stage rating survey is 1,002 successful interviews, not 1,002 x 67.3% response rate. In the past, many media made this mistake. * "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 +/-2.0 at 95% confidence level" when quoting the rating figures. In view of the error margins, one decimal place can be used when quoting these rating 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 the POP Site the latest ratings of the top 10 political groups. As a general practice, 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 mid-2008. Herewith the contact information for the latest survey:
The research design of our "Top ten political groups" has been explained in detail under "Survey Method" in our corresponding web page. The top political groups listed in our latest survey were all those who obtained highest unprompted mentions in our first stage naming survey conducted from November 11 to 14, 2008. In that survey, respondents could name, unaided, up to 10 political groups whom they knew best. Democratic Alliance for Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB), Democratic Party (DP), Liberal Party (LP), Civic Party (CP) and League of Social Democrats (LSD) were mentioned most frequently. Please refer to the relevant table in our website for the rest of the list. The 12 most frequently mentioned political groups then entered into the second stage rating survey. During that second stage survey conducted from November 26 to 30, respondents were asked to rate each political group in turn using a 0-100 scale. 0 indicates absolutely no support, 100 indicates absolute support, and 50 means half-half. After calculation, the bottom 2 political groups in terms of recognition rate were dropped, leaving behind the top 10. In case any group failed to reach the 50% benchmark recognition rate, it would also be dropped. It should, however, be noted that because political groups are not yet legal entities in Hong Kong, such definitions are rather vague, and so-called political groups are constantly evolving. As a result, strange names may appear in the list of groups mentioned by respondents in Stage One surveys. In order to avoid personal bias, our research team will eliminate groups which fall outside the popular definition only after the first stage of the survey. To facilitate readers follow our research process step by step, the POP Site has already displayed the results of all naming surveys conducted since July 1998. The latest ratings of the top 10 political groups, together with the previous ratings, are summarized below:
** Ratings with recognition rates not reaching top 10 in either stage of survey are not available. [ ] Number in square brackets indicates rankings, which may need to be determined by the next decimal place of the ratings. # 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. Findings obtained in late November showed that, the best-known political group was the Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions (FTU) which attained 53.4 marks. Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions (HKCTU), Civic Party (CP) and Hong Kong Association for Democracy & People's Livelihood (ADPL) ranked 2nd to 4th, achieving 52.3, 51.1 and 50.7 marks respectively. Meanwhile, the 5th to 10th ranks fell to Democratic Party (DP), Democratic Alliance for Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB), Frontier, League of Social Democrats (LSD), Liberal Party (LP) and April Fifth Action (AFA), with respective scores of 49.5, 48.5, 46.6, 45.4, 41.0 and 36.5 marks. The mean score obtained by the top 5 political groups was 51.4 marks. For this latest survey, Neighbourhood and Worker's Service Centre (NWS) and Civil Force (CF) obtained a support rating of 51.0 and 44.0 marks respectively, but they were dropped due to their relatively low recognition rates. The overall ratings ranked according to results obtained over the past 12 months are tabulated as follows:
** "Overall ranking" is first determined by their number of times on top 10, and then their average ratings. ^ Ratings with recognition rates not reaching top 10 in either stage of survey are not available. #The average ratings of DAB and ADPL were 50.55 and 50.53 respectively. Hence DAB ranked the 4th while ADPL ranked the 5th. The overall rankings in the past 12 months showed that, the top 9 political groups were all listed for four times. FTU was in the top rank, achieving an average rating of 54.0 marks. CP, HKCTU, DAB and ADPL ranked 2nd to 5th, attaining 52.1, 51.9, 50.5 and 50.5 marks respectively. Meanwhile, the 6th to 9th ranks fell to DP, LP, Frontier and AFA with respective scores of 48.6, 46.9, 46.2 and 35.8. HKASPDMC was listed for three times and ranked 10th, attaining 45.2 marks. LSD was listed for one time and ranked 11th. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 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, the previous survey was conducted from August 18-20, 2008 while this survey was conducted from November 26-30, 2008. In between these two surveys, 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 Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of Public Opinion Programme, observed, "In our latest survey of 'Top 10 Political Groups', other than LP and DP, the ratings of all other political groups have fluctuated within sampling errors. Compared to 3 months ago, the rating of LP has plunged 6.4 marks to 41.0, which is record low since POP started to measure the rating of LP and its predecessor Co-operative Resources Centre since May 1992. This record low is obviously due to LP's failure in its election bid and its internal division after that. At the other end, the rating of DP has significantly increased 1.8 marks to 49.5, after absorbing the majority of Frontier members. As for yet to be dissolved Frontier itself, its rating has not changed much. In terms of relative rankings, FTU continues to top the list, while CTU and CP swap positions to become 2nd and 3rd respectively. ADPL continues to rank 4th, while DP and DAB also swap positions to become 5th and 6th. Frontier advances one position to become 7th, LSD passes the recognition benchmark for the first time to become 8th, LP drops two positions to become 9th, while APA continues to remain at the bottom. It should be noted, however, that our 'Top 10 Political Groups' only includes groups which are best known to the public, ranked according to their support ratings. Other political groups may well have very high or low support ratings, but because they are relatively less well-known, they are not included in our final list. Take our latest survey as an example, had Frontier been dissolved according to its plan, Worker's Service Centre would have entered 'Top 10' and ranked 4th, overtaking ADPL. However, Frontier continues to exist, so WSC keeps lingering below the recognition benchmark. As to what events have affected the ups and downs of the popularity of these groups, readers can make their own judgment after reading through detailed records placed in our 'Opinion Daily'." | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 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 December 4, 2008, Thursday, between 1pm to 2pm, when results on people's most familiar political figures will be released. Then on December 9, 2008, Tuesday, between 1pm to 2pm, POP will release popularity figures of CE Donald Tsang, Secretaries of Departments and Directors of Bureaux under the accountability system. 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. It is our general practice 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. Since January 2006, 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". | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| About HKUPOP Rating and ranking political groups The rating and ranking of local political groups were among the earliest surveys conducted by HKUPOP. Our first exercise was conducted in July 1991, shortly after our establishment in June 1991. We have explained the development of these surveys 8 times in our press releases issued between August 24, 2006 and August 29, 2008. Today, we release it again, so that readers can have a more comprehensive picture of such development. Elsewhere in the world, it is very natural to monitor the performance of political parties by means of public opinion polling. However, here in Hong Kong, political parties were not, and are not, legal entities. People use vague definitions, and the so-called political groups are constantly evolving. As a result, it would be rather difficult to define political parties in a scientific or legal way. There are apparently three ways to solve this problem. First, let it be defined by the organizations themselves, meaning that those and only those who claimed themselves to be political parties would be treated as political parties. Second, let it be defined by the people, that those considered by the general public as parties would be treated as parties. Third, to avoid the problem by adopting the wider definition of political groups, instead of political parties, when conducting studies. The surveys on political groups started by HKUPOP basically combine the second and third methods mentioned above. We first screen out the best known political groups recognized by the public, then rate each of them, and then rank them. We first branded our findings as "top 5 political groups" and then as "top 10 political groups" in order to keep pace with Hong Kong's political development. Herewith the details of such surveys:
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| | Abstract | Latest Figures | Opinion Daily | Commentary | News about POP | | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
