HKU POP SITE releases findings on people's expectation of CE's Policy AddressBack
| Press Release on October 12, 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Special Announcement | Abstract | Latest Figures | Commentary | Next Release (Tentative) | | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Special Announcement Two weeks ago, the "POP Site" at http://hkupop.pori.hk hosted by the Public Opinion Programme (POP) at the University of Hong Kong set up new links and functions like Facebook, Twitter, and RSS. The number of such links and functions has now increased to over 40, in order to help readers follow its content update and share its latest information with others. Moreover, as in previous years, POP will conduct an instant survey after the Chief Executive delivers his policy address this year. Results will be announced the following day. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 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 the specific problem of "labour and employment" goes to the top of the list, followed by the general problem of "economic development" and then education. Their overall importance rates are all over 85%. Social welfare and political development come fourth and fifth with importance rates of 79% and 62% respectively. Compared to this time last year, those who consider labour and employment to be "very important" has surged by 12 percentage points. For the other three items which appear on the top 5 list for two consecutive years, the importance rates of economic development and social welfare have not changed much, while that of political development has increased significantly by 5 percentage points. Education dropped out of the list last year. It comes back this year to take up the third poistion, with almost the same importance rate registered two years ago. The sampling error of the survey is between +/-2 and +/-4 percentage points at 95% confidence level, response rate of the first stage and second stage survey being 66% and 68% 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 1,000 successful interviews, not 1,000 x 66.2% response rate, while the sample size of the second stage survey is 1,010, not 1,010 x 67.5% 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. "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 fifth 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 2008 year-end and mid-2009 for the first stage and second stage survey respectively. Herewith the contact information for the latest survey:
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 fifth Policy Address to be announced this Wednesday, 38% of the respondents wished he would take "economic development" as his first priority, while 19% chose "labour and employment" and a respective of 10%, 8%, 5% and 5% opted for "social welfare", "political development", "education" and "medical policy". Besides, "housing" and "environment" each took up 2%, and 8% 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:
** 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, labour and employment issue topped the list, as 92% of the respondents said CE Donald Tsang needed to tackle this issue in the coming Policy Address. Economic development, education, social welfare and political development issues followed, as 89%, 86%, 79% and 62% 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 four years ago. We wanted to study both the absolute and relative importance of different policy items. In our latest survey, when people are not prompted with specific answers in the first stage, close to 40% choose 'economic development' in its broad sense as the most pressing policy area to be handled in the coming Policy Address, putting it at the top of the list. However, after people are asked to rate each item individually in the second stage, the specific problem of 'labour and employment' goes to the top of the list, followed by the general problem of 'economic development' and then education. Their overall importance rates are all over 85%. Social welfare and political development come fourth and fifth with importance rates of 79% and 62% respectively. Compared to this time last year, those who consider labour and employment to be 'very important' has surged by 12 percentage points. For the other three items which appear on the top 5 list for two consecutive years, the importance rates of economic development and social welfare have not changed much, while that of political development has increased significantly by 5 percentage points. Education dropped out of the list last year. It comes back this year to take up the third position, with almost the same importance rate registered two years ago." | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| | Special Announcement | Abstract | Latest Figures | Commentary | Next Release (Tentative) | |
