HKU POP SITE releases latest trust and confidence indicatorsBack
| Press Release on January 5, 2010 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Points to Note | Abstract | Latest Figures | Opinion Daily | Commentary | Next Release (Tentative) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Points to Note (1) Since the figures released by the Public Opinion Programme (POP) of the University of Hong Kong at the "HKU POP SITE" (http://hkupop.pori.hk) today come from the last tracking survey on this topic conducted by HKUPOP in 2009, the half-yearly averages published in the website are good for year-end stories. Because the handover of Hong Kong occurred on July 1, it may be more appropriate and accurate to analyze macro changes of Hong Kong society using half-yearly figures rather than yearly figures. Moreover, a chronology of headline events reported by the local newspapers over the past four years can be found in the "Opinion Daily" at the "POP Site". That may also be useful in running year-end reviews. (2) POP will release the headcount figures of this year's New Year Rally tomorrow, January 6, 2010, via the POP Site. The headcount project was conducted independently by POP without any sponsorship, nor prior notice to anybody.
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Abstract The Public Opinion Programme (POP) at the University of Hong Kong interviewed 1,028 Hong Kong people between 28 and 30 December, 2009 by means of a random telephone survey conducted by real interviewers. Our survey finds that compared to two months ago, people's trust in the HKSAR government has remained stable, but their distrust has significantly dropped by 8 percentage points after surging 14 percentage points last time. Its net trust level has significantly increased from positive 17 percentage points two months ago to positive 28 percentage points now. People's trust in the Central and Taiwan governments have gone down by 3 and 8 percentage points respectively. Their net trust levels now stand at positive 28 and negative 27 percentage points. As for the confidence indicators, people's confidence in the future of Hong Kong, China and "one country, two systems" have not changed much. All positive figures have remained high, and people's net confidence in the future of Hong Kong, China and "one country, two systems" now stand at positive 42, 77 and 38 percentage points respectively. Director of POP Robert Chung points out that summarizing changes in people's trust in the Hong Kong and Beijing governments over the past 18 years using half-yearly figures, one can see that people's trust in the Hong Kong government has fluctuated at lot, while their trust in the Beijing government has gradually increased. Between the second half of 2001 and the second half of 2004, and again from the second half of 2008 up to now, Hong Kong people have trusted the Central government more than our local government. The maximum sampling error of all percentages is between +/-2 and +/-3 percentage points at 95% confidence level, while the response rate of the survey is 67%. Points to note:[1] The address of the "HKU POP SITE" is http://hkupop.pori.hk, journalists can check out the details of the survey there. [2] The sample size of this survey is 1,028 successful interviews, not 1,028 x 66.5% response rate. In the past, many media made this mistake. [3] The maximum sampling error of all percentages is below +/-2 to +/-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". [4] When quoting percentages of this survey, journalists should refrain from reporting decimal places in order to match the precision level of the figures. [5] 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.
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| Latest Figures POP today releases on schedule via the POP Site the latest findings on people's trust in the HKSAR, Beijing Central and Taiwan Governments, their confidence in Hong Kong's future, China's future and "one country, two systems". 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 mid-2009. Herewith the contact information for the latest survey:
Recent popularity figures of SAR, Beijing Central and Taiwan Governments, and people's confidence in the future are summarized below:
[8] Collapsed from a 5-point scale. [9] 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. Survey conducted in late December revealed that 48% of the respondents trusted the HKSAR Government, 49% trusted the Beijing Central Government, and 14% trusted the Taiwan Government. On the other hand, 68% of the respondents had confidence in Hong Kong's future and 86% had confidence in China's future, while 66% of the respondents were confident in "one country, two systems".
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| 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. For the polling items covered in this press release, the previous survey was conducted from October 20 to 30, 2009 while this survey was conducted from December 28 to 30, 2009. 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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Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of Public Opinion Programme, observed, "Compared to two months ago, people's trust in the HKSAR government has remained stable, but their distrust has significantly dropped by 8 percentage points after surging 14 percentage points last time. Its net trust level has significantly increased from positive 17 percentage points two months ago to positive 28 percentage points now. People's trust in the Central and Taiwan governments have gone down by 3 and 8 percentage points respectively. Their net trust levels now stand at positive 28 and negative 27 percentage points. As for the confidence indicators, people's confidence in the future of Hong Kong, China and "one country, two systems" have not changed much. All positive figures have remained high, and people's net confidence in the future of Hong Kong, China and "one country, two systems" now stand at positive 42, 77 and 38 percentage points respectively. Summarizing changes in people's trust in the Hong Kong and Beijing governments over the past 18 years, using our half-yearly figures, we can see that people's trust in the Hong Kong government has fluctuated at lot, while their trust in the Beijing government has gradually increased. Between the second half of 2001 and the second half of 2004, and again from the second half of 2008 up to now, Hong Kong people have trusted the Central government more than our local government. As for the reasons affecting the ups and downs of these figures, readers are welcome to make their own judgment using the detailed records displayed in our "Opinion Daily"."
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Next Release (Tentative)
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| Points to Note | Abstract | Latest Figures | Opinion Daily | Commentary | Next Release (Tentative) |
