HKU POP SITE releases the latest ratings of the top 10 political groupsBack

The Public Opinion Programme (POP) at the University of Hong Kong conducted a double stage survey on the ranking of the top 10 political groups in late January and early February, by means of random telephone surveys conducted by real interviewers. The surveys find that Frontier has re-entered the list at the 6th position and displaced NWS out of the list. Its rating now stands at 49.4 marks. Compared to 3 months ago, the ratings of HKASPDMC, HKCTU and DP have significantly increased, while those of other groups staying on the list have not changed much. Their relative rankings, however, have changed significantly. Compared to 3 months ago, HKCTU advances two positions to top the list, FTU continues to stay at the 2nd place, ADPL advances two positions to become the 3rd, HKASPDMC jumps four positions to occupy the 4th place, while DP advances two positions to become the 5th. CP which was 4th last time has dropped three positions to take the 7th place, while DAB also drops down two places to take the 8th place. LP and LSD continue to take the 9th and 10th positions. The maximum sampling errors of the ratings registered fall between +/-1.2 and +/-2.0 while the response rate of the rating 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 the first stage naming survey is 1,003 successful interviews, not 1,003 x 65.4% response rate, while the sample size of the second stage rating survey is other 1,060 successful interviews, not 1,060 x 67.3% response rate. In the past, many media made this mistake.
[3] "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.
[4] 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.

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-2009. 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 January 29 to February 2. 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), League of Social Democrats (LSD) and Civic Party (CP) 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 February 4 to 9, 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. In the survey series of August and November 2009, our research team eliminated Frontier from the list. However, since there were news of Frontier reported in newspaper in January 1 rally this year, we have decided to put it back to the list this time. 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:

Findings obtained in early February showed that, the best-known political group was the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions (HKCTU) which attained 52.8 marks. Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions (FTU) and Hong Kong Association for Democracy and People's Livelihood (ADPL) both scored 51.3 marks, but ranked 2nd and 3rd in terms of two decimal places. The 4th to 8th places were Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movement in China (HKASPDMC), Democratic Party (DP), Frontier, Civic Party (CP) and Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB), attaining 50.0, 49.9, 49.4, 48.9 and 48.1 marks respectively. The 9th and 10th places fell to Liberal Party (LP) and League of Social Democrats (LSD), with a respective score of 45.6 and 39.1. The mean score obtained by the top 5 political groups was 50.6 marks. For this latest survey, Neighbourhood and Worker's Service Centre (NWS) and Liberal Democratic Federation of Hong Kong (LDF) obtained a support rating of 53.4 and 42.9 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:

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 52.0 marks. HKCTU, ADPL and CP ranked 2nd to 4th, attaining 51.7, 50.3 and 50.0 marks respectively. Meanwhile, the 5th to 9th ranks fell to DP, DAB, HKASPDMC, LP and LSD with respective scores of 49.2, 48.7, 47.9, 45.0 and 39.9. Frontier was listed for two times and ranked 10th, attaining 48.5 marks. NWS and AFA were listed for once, with 51.8 and 38.2 marks and ranked 11th and 12th.

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 November 19 to 23 while this survey was conducted from February 4 to 9. 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.

Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of Public Opinion Programme, observed, "In our latest survey of "Top 10 Political Groups", Frontier has re-entered the list at the 6th position and displaced NWS out of the list. Its rating now stands at 49.4 marks. Compared to 3 months ago, the ratings of HKASPDMC, HKCTU and DP have significantly increased, while those of other groups staying on the list have not changed much. Their relative rankings, however, have changed significantly. Compared to 3 months ago, HKCTU advances two positions to top the list, FTU continues to stay at the 2nd place, ADPL advances two positions to become the 3rd, HKASPDMC jumps four positions to occupy the 4th place, while DP advances two positions to become the 5th. CP which was 4th last time has dropped three positions to take the 7th place, while DAB also drops down two places to take the 8th place. LP and LSD continue to take the 9th and 10th positions. 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. 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"."

• February 25, 2010 (Thursday) 1pm to 2pm: Budget Instant Poll
• March 2, 2010 (Tuesday) 1pm to 2pm: Popularity of CE and SARG, Budget Second Poll