HKU POP SITE releases the latest results of the Handover Anniversary surveyBack

Press Release on June 30, 2009

Special Announcement

The Public Opinion Programme at the University of Hong Kong will conduct a headcount of July 1 Rally participants tomorrow, and release its preliminary results via the "HKU POP SITE" (http://hkupop.pori.hk) tomorrow evening, around 2 to 4 hours after the rally. To read the figures, one can go to the POP Site, click on the picture icon for "July 1 Rally Feature Page", and then choose "July 1 Rally Headcounting Project 2009". Alternatively, one can click on the left menu "Special Features", then "July 1 Rally Feature Page", and then make the choice. Furthermore, POP will conduct an on-site survey of July 1 Rally participants, in order to understand their background and demands. POP will also invite rally participants to complete an online survey via the online "Hong Kong People's Opinion Platform", results of which will be published in due course. The "July 1 Rally Feature Page" also contains survey and headcount results obtained in previous years for comparative studies. POP's various studies on July 1 this year are supported by a large number of student and teacher volunteers coming from the Hong Kong Community College and The Chinese University of Hong Kong, and also a number of unaffiliated enthusiastic volunteers. We thank them all.

Abstract of Anniversary Survey

POP interviewed 1,008 Hong Kong people between 23 and 26 June, 2009 by means of a random telephone survey conducted by real interviewers. The survey finds that as the 12th Handover Anniversary draws near, our survey shows that Hong Kong people's feeling of pride in becoming a Chinese national citizen has remained half-half, and the figures have fluctuated within a narrow range since 2005. Regarding people's appraisal of the Central Government's Hong Kong policies, although this year's positive figure has dropped a bit, it has nevertheless remained high. Net appraisal (meaning positive percentage minus negative percentage) now stands at positive 42 percentage points, which has not changed much since 2006. Director of POP Robert Chung observes, "Combining the two sets of figures and looking at the trend of development after the handover, the year 2005 was no doubt a watershed in public opinion, somewhat related to the change of Chief Executives." Since this release occurs right before the handover anniversary, Robert Chung adds, for most of the regular tracking surveys released by POP through our POP Site, POP has included half-yearly averages which are good for anniversary and year-end reviews. Because the handover of Hong Kong occurred on July 1, it may be more appropriate to analyze macro changes of Hong Kong society using half-yearly figures rather than yearly figures. The sampling error of the survey is between +/-2 to 3 percentage points at 95% confidence level. The response rate of the survey is 70%.

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.
* Since the figures in this release come from the annual survey conducted by HKUPOP in 2009, these yearly figures are good for general reviews of Hong Kong's development.
* The sample size of this survey is 1,008 successful interviews, not 1,008 x 70.0% response rate. In the past, many media made this mistake.
* The maximum sampling error of all percentages is between +/-2 and 3 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 +/-3% at 95% confidence level".
* When quoting percentages of this survey, journalists should refrain from reporting decimal places 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 the POP SITE the latest survey results related to the handover anniversary. The two questions are "people's feeling of becoming a national citizen of China" and "people's evaluation of the policy of Central Government on Hong Kong". 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 2008 year-end. Herewith the contact information for the latest survey:

Date of survey	Overall sample size	Response rate	Sampling error of percentages*
23-26/6/2009	1,008	70.0%	+/-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.

The survey results are tabulated below:

Date of survey	20-23/6/05	19-21/6/06	15-21/6/07	24-26/6/08	23-26/6/09	Latest change
Sample base	1,026	1,012	1,006	1,033	1,008	--
Overall response rate	61.9%	58.2%	65.2%	72.1%	70.0%	--
Finding for each question / Sampling error	Finding	Finding	Finding	Finding	Finding& Error*	--
Being proud of becoming a national citizen of China	46%#	47%	48%	50%	50%+/-3%	--
Not being proud of becoming a national citizen of China	45%#	51%#	50%	48%	49%+/-3%	+1%
Central Government's policy on HK: positive evaluations **	36%#	56%#	56%	57%	53%+/-3%	-4%#
Central Government's policy on HK: negative evaluations **	15%#	10%#	10%	8%	11%+/-2%	+3%#

* Errors are calculated 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. Media can state "sampling error of percentages not more than +/-3% at 95% confidence level" when quoting the above figures. The error margin of previous survey can be found at the POP Site.
** 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.

Results of the latest anniversary survey revealed that, 50% of the respondents were proud of becoming a national citizen of China after the handover, while 49% said they did not have any special feeling. As for the policy of the Central Government on Hong Kong after the handover, 53% of the respondents evaluated it positively, whereas 11% gave negative evaluations.

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, in order to let readers judge by themselves the reasons for the ups and downs of different opinion figures. In July 2007, POP collaborated with Wisers Information Limited whereby Wisers supplies to POP each day starting from July 24, a record of significant events of that day, according to the research method designed by POP. These daily entries would be uploaded to "Opinion Daily" as soon as they are verified by POP.

Since August 2007, POP would normally 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. Yet, this press release is an exception. It is because for the polling items covered in this press release, the previous survey was conducted from June 24 to 26, 2008 while this survey was conducted from June 23 to 26, 2009. The two surveys were one year apart, and any of the significant events inside "Opinion Daily" in between might have affected people's comments for the year past. Thus, this press release would not further select the events from "Opinion Daily", but readers can make their own judgment based on the detailed records in the respective online section.

Commentary

Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of Public Opinion Programme, observed, "As the 12th Handover Anniversary draws near, our survey shows that Hong Kong people's feeling of pride in becoming a Chinese national citizen has remained half-half, and the figures have fluctuated within a narrow range since 2005. Regarding people's appraisal of the Central Government's Hong Kong policies, although this year's positive figure has dropped a bit, it has nevertheless remained high. Net appraisal (meaning positive percentage minus negative percentage) now stands at positive 42 percentage points, which has not changed much since 2006. Combining the two sets of figures and looking at the trend of development after the handover, the year 2005 was no doubt a watershed in public opinion, somewhat related to the change of Chief Executives."

Since this release occurs right before the handover anniversary, Robert Chung added, "For most of the regular tracking surveys released by POP through our POP Site, we have included half-yearly averages which are good for anniversary and year-end reviews. Because the handover of Hong Kong occurred on July 1, it may be more appropriate to analyze macro changes of Hong Kong society using half-yearly figures rather than yearly figures."

Next Release (Tentative)

July 2, 2009 (Thursday) 1pm to 2pm: Popularity of Legco members, the Police and the PLA Hong Kong Garrison/li>
July 7, 2009 (Tuesday) 1pm to 2pm: Appraisal of current conditions