HKU POP SITE releases popularity figures of CE Donald Tsang, Secretaries of Departments and Directors of Bureaux under the accountability system Back
| Press Release on April 20, 2010 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Abstract | Latest Figures | Opinion Daily | Commentary | Future Release (Tentative) | |
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Abstract The Public Opinion Programme (POP) at the University of Hong Kong interviewed 1,009 Hong Kong people between April 7 and 12 by means of a random telephone survey conducted by real interviewers. Our latest survey shows that CE Donald Tsang's popularity continues to drop before the announcement of political reform proposals by the government. Compared with last survey, Tsang's support rating has dropped significantly by 1.8 marks to 50.7, reaching its record low since early November last year. His approval rate has dropped significantly by 4 percentage points, while his disapproval rate increased by 3 percentage points to 49% and reached its record high since he became CE. His net popularity now stands at negative 15 percentage points. For the Secretaries of Departments, compared to one month ago, the popularity of CS Henry Tang, FS John Tsang and SJ Wong Yan-lung have all dropped. Their support ratings have dropped significantly by 1.9, 2.9 and 1.3 marks respectively, and that of Henry Tang has reached record low since he became CS. Besides, the approval rate of Henry Tang and Wong Yan-lung have dropped significantly by 4 and 5 percentage points. The net approval rates of Tang, Tsang and Wong now stand at positive 24, 34 and 52 percentage points respectively. Wong Yan-lung remains to be the most popular Secretary of Department. As for the Directors of Bureaux, compared to one month ago, the approval rates of 9 among 12 Directors have gone down, 3 have gone up. Among them, those with changes in approval rate beyond sampling error include Secretary for Education Michael Suen, Secretary for Food and Health York Chow and Secretary for the Civil Service Denise Yue, down by 7, 6 and 5 percentage points respectively. Among the Secretaries and Directors, only Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Stephen Lam, Secretary for Home Affairs Tsang Tak-sing and Secretary for Education Michael Suen register negative popularity, meaning that their disapproval rates are higher than their approval rates. Their net popularity figures now stand at negative 4, negative 4 and negative 3 percentage points. According to POP's standard, no official falls under the category of "ideal" performance. Ambrose Lee, Wong Yan-lung, John Tsang and Matthew Cheung now fall under the category of "successful". Carrie Lam, York Chow, Henry Tang, Eva Cheng, Edward Yau, Donald Tsang, Michael Suen, Stephen Lam and Tsang Tak-sing can be labeled as "mediocre". Denise Yue, Rita Lau and Ceajer Chan can be labeled as "inconspicuous". No official falls under the categories of "depressing" or "disastrous". The maximum sampling error of all approval and disapproval rates is between +/-2 and +/-4 percentage points at 95% confidence level, while the sampling error of rating figures needs another calculation. The response rate of the survey is 65%. 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 1,009 successful interviews, not 1,009 x 65.3% response rate. In the past, many media made this mistake. [3] The maximum sampling error of all approval and disapproval rates is between +/-2 and +/-4 percentage points at 95% confidence level, while the sampling error of rating figures needs another calculation. "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 various ratings not more than +/-1.4 and sampling error of percentages not more than +/-4% at 95% confidence level". [4] 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. [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 POP SITE the latest popularity figures of CE Donald Tsang, Secretaries of Departments and Directors of Bureaux under the accountability system. 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 2009 year-end. Herewith the contact information for the latest survey:
As different questions involve different sub-samples, the sample errors will vary accordingly. The table below briefly shows the relationship between sample size and maximum sampling errors for the readers to capture the corresponding changes:
"Maximum sampling errors" occur when survey figures are close to 50%. If the figures are close to 0% or 100%, the sampling error will diminish accordingly. The sampling errors of ratings, however, will depend on the distribution of the raw figures. Since January 2007, POP lists out the sampling errors of all survey figures in detail and explain them in due course. Recent popularity figures of CE Donald Tsang are summarized as follows:
[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. [10] The survey was conducted on February 24, and the sub-sample sizes of questions on CE's support rating and hypothetical voting were 680 and 672 respectively. Figures on the latest popularity ratings of the three Secretaries of Departments under the accountability system are summarized below:
[12] All error figures in the table 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 various ratings not more than +/-1.3, 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. [13] 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. [14] The survey was conducted on February 24, and the sub-sample sizes of questions on FS's support rating and hypothetical voting were 689 and 576 respectively. Figures on the latest popularity ratings of Directors of Bureaux under the accountability system are summarized below:
[16] All error figures in the table 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 +/-4% at 95% confidence level" when quoting the above figures. The error margin of previous survey can be found at the POP Site. [17] 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. [18] In one decimal place, the approval rates of Secretary for Mainland Affairs Stephen Lam Sui-lung, Secretary for Home Affairs Tsang Tak-sing and Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development Rita Lau Ng Wai-lan are 29.3%, 29.2% and 28.7% respectively. The latest survey showed that, CE Donald Tsang scored 50.7 marks, and 34% supported him as the Chief Executive. Meanwhile, the corresponding ratings of CS Henry Tang, FS John Tsang and SJ Wong Yan-lung were 52.5, 54.5 and 59.9 marks and 42%, 53% and 59% would vote for their reappointment correspondingly.
As for the Directors of Bureaux, results revealed that the top approval rate fell to Secretary for Security Ambrose Lee, attaining 65%. The 2nd place belonged to Secretary for Labour and Welfare Matthew Cheung, with 51% approval rate. Secretary for Development Carrie Lam and Secretary for Food and Health York Chow ranked 3rd and 4th, with approval rate 48% and 47% respectively. Secretary for Transport and Housing Eva Cheng and Secretary for the Environment Edward Yau ranked 5th and 6th, with approval rate 41% and 39% respectively. Secretary for Education Michael Suen, Secretary for the Civil Service Denise Yue, Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Stephen Lam, Secretary for Home Affairs Tsang Tak-sing, Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development Rita Lau and Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury Ceajer Chan ranked the 7th to 12th as they gained 33%, 30%, 29%, 29%, 29% and 28% support from the public respectively. In other words, only Ambrose Lee and Matthew Cheung scored approval rates of over 50% among all Directors of Bureaux.
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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 of some items was conducted from March 1 to 3, 2010 while this survey was conducted from April 7 to 12, 2010. During this period, 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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Note: The following commentary was written by Director of POP Robert Chung.
Our latest survey conducted before the announcement of political reform proposals by the government shows that CE Donald Tsang's popularity continues to drop. Compared to the last survey, Donald Tsang's support rating has dropped significantly by 1.8 marks to 50.7, reaching its record low since early November last year. His approval rate has dropped significantly by 4 percentage points, while his disapproval rate increased by 3 percentage points to 49% and reached its record high since he became CE. His net popularity now stands at negative 15 percentage points.
As for the Directors of Bureaux, compared to one month ago, the approval rates of 9 among 12 Directors have gone down, 3 have gone up. Among them, those with changes in approval rate beyond sampling error include Secretary for Education Michael Suen, Secretary for Food and Health York Chow and Secretary for the Civil Service Denise Yue, down by 7, 6 and 5 percentage points respectively. Among the Secretaries and Directors, only Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Stephen Lam, Secretary for Home Affairs Tsang Tak-sing and Secretary for Education Michael Suen register negative popularity, meaning that their disapproval rates are higher than their approval rates. Their net popularity figures now stand at negative 4, negative 4 and negative 3 percentage points. According to POP's standard, no official falls under the category of "ideal" performance. Ambrose Lee, Wong Yan-lung, John Tsang and Matthew Cheung now fall under the category of "successful". Carrie Lam, York Chow, Henry Tang, Eva Cheng, Edward Yau, Donald Tsang, Michael Suen, Stephen Lam and Tsang Tak-sing can be labeled as "mediocre". Denise Yue, Rita Lau and Ceajer Chan can be labeled as "inconspicuous". No official falls under the categories of "depressing" or "disastrous". As for the reasons affecting the popularity change of these officials, readers can make their own judgment using detailed records shown in our "Opinion Daily" feature page. The following table summarizes the grading of the principal officials for readers' easy reference:
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Future Release (Tentative)
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| Abstract | Latest Figures | Opinion Daily | Commentary | Future Release (Tentative) | |
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