HKU POP SITE releases the results of Policy Address follow-up surveyBack
| Press Release on October 20, 2009 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Abstract The Public Opinion Programme (POP) at the University of Hong Kong interviewed 508 Hong Kong people between 15 and 17 October by means of a random telephone survey conducted by real interviewers. The survey finds that people's satisfaction with CE Donald Tsang's fifth Policy Address has dropped significantly to 19%, while dissatisfaction rate increases from 28% to 31%. The situation is almost identical to last year. Regarding the Address' rating, worse than last year, our follow-up survey records a significant drop of 3.7 marks to 49.8. In other words, after some initial discussions, people's appraisal of the Policy Address has turned negative. Those who did not express an opinion before have become dissatisfied. In terms of its theme, 45% of respondents agree that "Breaking New Ground Together" meets the need of society. Although 15 percentage points higher than the negative figure, it is the lowest registered in similar surveys after the handover. On the other hand, 66% support Tsang's suggestion to reinforce the four traditional pillar industries and developing six more, 78% support his plan to conserve Central. Both reactions are positive. However, the fact that he did not mention helping the poor and the needy again in his Address invited 59% criticism. His simple treatment of constitutional development invited 41%, both being higher than their corresponding positive figures. Finally, on our tracking question of people's satisfaction with Donald Tsang's policy direction, compared to two months ago, the figure has dropped significantly by 5 percentage points, back to the level registered in late October last year. This year's Policy Address seems to have increased people dissatisfaction with CE's policy direction. The sampling error of all percentages is between +/-1 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 508 successful interviews, not 508 x 70.6% 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. One to 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 15. Today, we release the results of our follow-up survey.
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| Latest Figures The findings of the follow-up 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-2009. Herewith the contact information of various surveys:
Results of the follow-up survey of Policy Address, together with the instant poll, for 2008 and 2009 are tabulated below:
** Collapsed from a 5-point scale. ^ Excluding respondents who did not answer this question because they had not heard of / did not know the details of the Policy Address. The sub-sample size was 515. ^^ Excluding respondents who did not answer this question because they had not heard of / did not know the details of the Policy Address. The sub-sample size was 462. # 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 49.8 marks. With respect to people's specific reactions towards the contents of this year's Policy Address, relevant findings are summarized below:
Findings on people's opinion whether the theme of Policy Address concurred with the current needs of the society from 1997 till present are summarized as follows,
^ The question wordings were "The theme of this year's Policy Address is "XXXX". Do you think this theme concurs with the current needs of the society?" ^^ Excluding those respondents who refused to answer this question. Since 2006, this series of question only use sub-sample. # 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. # #This question was not covered in the instant Policy Address poll in 1997 and 1998. Results showed that 45% thought the theme of the Policy Address "Breaking New Ground Together" concurred with the current needs of the society while 30% did not think so. Besides, 66% supported Donald Tsang's proposed direction of reinforcing the four traditional pillar industries and developing the six industries while 12% opposed. Regarding the series measures put forward by CE to conserve Central, like conserving the Central Market and the Central Policy Station, 78% gave a positive answer while 10% held an opposite view. Donald Tsang has also mentioned quality life and progressive society, but not helping the poor and the needy again. A total of 22% found it satisfactory while 59% were dissatisfied. Lastly, regarding the public consultations to be commenced next month on constitutional development, 38% were satisfied while 41% held an opposite view. 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, 25% of the respondents showed satisfaction while 34% were not satisfied. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Note: The following commentary was written by Director of POP Robert Chung. According to our Policy Address instant survey, among the nearly 500 respondents who have some knowledge of the CE Donald Tsang's 5th Address, 30% said they were satisfied, 28% were not, and the Address scored 53.5 marks. These figures are very similar to those of last year, meaning that overall appraisal is not too positive, but nevertheless outweighs negative appraisal by just a little. Net satisfaction rate now stands at positive 2 percentage points. As for CE Donald Tsang's popularity, after giving his Address, his support rating has dropped a bit, while his approval rate remains intact. This shows that the Address has no significant effect on his popularity. Looking back at the instant effect of CH Tung and Donald Tsang's Policy Addresses across the years, we found that Tung's Addresses usually have a stimulating effect, while Tsang's Addresses by and large have a dampening effect. However, because CE Tsang's popularity figures are consistently higher than those of CE Tung, such an effect seems to have set very little pressure on CE Tsang. Furthermore, after excluding those who did not respond for various reasons, 27% said their confidence in the future of Hong Kong had increased after the Policy Address, 22% said their confidence had dropped, while 47% said "no change". This shows that the Address has little effect in boosting people's confidence, but is already more positive than last year, probably because the economy is recovering. Our instant survey has shown people's instant reaction towards the Policy Address. How public opinion would change after CE and his officials explain their policies remains to be seen. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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