HKU POP SITE releases popularity figures of CE Donald Tsang, Secretaries of Departments and Directors of Bureaux under the accountability systemBack
| Press Release on May 11, 2010 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Special Announcement | Abstract | Latest Figures | Opinion Daily | Commentary | Future Release (Tentative) | |
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Special Announcement
Upon the invitation of the Justice and Peace Commission of the Hong Kong Catholic Diocese (HKJP), the Director of Public Opinion Programme at the University of Hong Kong Robert Chung has written an article entitled "the meaning of referendum movement" to discuss the issue of referendum. The Chinese version of the article was published in the May 2010 issue of the HKJP Newsletter, and uploaded onto the "POP Column" of the HKU POP Site (http://hkupop.pori.hk) on May 7, 2010 for public reference.
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Abstract
HKUPOP interviewed 1,031 Hong Kong people between April 30 and May 6 by means of a random telephone survey conducted by real interviewers. Our latest survey shows that after a slight rebound at the end of last month, CE Donald Tsang's popularity has dropped again. In our latest survey, Donald Tsang's support rating has plunged 2.6 marks to 49.2, a record low since October last year. Changes in his approval and disapproval rates are within sampling errors, and his net popularity now stands at negative 14 percentage points. In between our last two surveys, Legco President Jasper Tsang said he might quit his presidential post to vote for the political reform package, Labour Day demonstrations happened, and whether CE would vote in the Legco by-election was discussed. All these might have affected CE's popularity. For the Secretaries of Departments, compared to one month ago, the popularity of CS Henry Tang, FS John Tsang and SJ Wong Yan-lung continue to drop, but only the support rating and approval rate of John Tsang have dropped beyond sampling error. The net approval rates of Tang, Tsang and Wong now stand at positive 24, 29 and 56 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, 2 remained unchanged and 1 has gone up. Among them, Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury Ceajer Chan is the only one with a change in approval rate beyond sampling error, up by 5 percentage points. Three Directors have their disapproval rates gone up beyond sampling errors. Among the Secretaries and Directors, only Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Stephen Lam, Secretary for Education Michael Suen and Secretary for Home Affairs Tsang Tak-sing register negative popularity, meaning that their disapproval rates are higher than their approval rates. Their net popularity figures now stand at negative 10, negative 8 and negative 3 percentage points. According to POP's standard, no official falls under the category of "ideal" performance. Ambrose Lee and Wong Yan-lung now fall under the category of "successful". John Tsang, Matthew Cheung, 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". Ceajer Chan, Denise Yue and Rita Lau 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 +/-1 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 72%.
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 1,031 successful interviews, not 1,031 x 72.4% response rate. In the past, many media made this mistake. [3] The maximum sampling error of all approval and disapproval rates is between +/-1 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 +/-1.3 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. Figures on the latest popularity ratings of the three Secretaries of Departments under the accountability system are summarized below:
[11] 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 +/-1.2, 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. [12] 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. [13] 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:
[15] 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. [16] 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. [17] In one decimal place, the approval rates of Secretary for the Civil Service Denise Yue and Secretary for Mainland Affairs Stephen Lam Sui-lung are 29.3% and 28.7% respectively; while that for Secretary for Home Affairs Tsang Tak-sing and Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development Rita Lau Ng Wai-lan are 28.1% and 27.8% respectively. The latest survey showed that, CE Donald Tsang scored 49.2 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 51.8, 53.1 and 58.9 marks and 42%, 49% and 62% 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 48% approval rate. Secretary for Development Carrie Lam and Secretary for Food and Health York Chow ranked 3rd and 4th, with approval rate 46% and 45% respectively. Secretary for Transport and Housing Eva Cheng and Secretary for the Environment Edward Yau ranked 5th and 6th, with approval rate 40% and 37% respectively. Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury Ceajer Chan, 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 and Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development Rita Lau ranked 7th to 12th, as they gained 33%, 30%, 29%, 29%, 28% and 28% support from the public respectively. In other words, only Ambrose Lee scored approval rate 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 April 7 to 12, 2010 while this survey was conducted from April 30 to May 6, 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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Commentary
Note: The following commentary was written by Director of POP Robert Chung.
After a slight rebound at the end of last month, CE Donald Tsang's popularity has dropped again. In our latest survey, Donald Tsang's support rating has plunged 2.6 marks to 49.2, a record low since October last year. Changes in his approval and disapproval rates are within sampling errors, and his net popularity now stands at negative 14 percentage points. In between our last two surveys, Legco President Jasper Tsang said he might quit his presidential post to vote for the political reform package, Labour Day demonstrations happened, and whether CE would vote in the Legco by-election was discussed. All these might have affected CE's popularity. For the Secretaries of Departments, compared to one month ago, the popularity of CS Henry Tang, FS John Tsang and SJ Wong Yan-lung continue to drop, but only the support rating and approval rate of John Tsang have dropped beyond sampling error. The net approval rates of Tang, Tsang and Wong now stand at positive 24, 29 and 56 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, 2 remained unchanged and 1 has gone up. Among them, Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury Ceajer Chan is the only one with a change in approval rate beyond sampling error, up by 5 percentage points. Three Directors have their disapproval rates gone up beyond sampling errors. Among the Secretaries and Directors, only Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Stephen Lam, Secretary for Education Michael Suen and Secretary for Home Affairs Tsang Tak-sing register negative popularity, meaning that their disapproval rates are higher than their approval rates. Their net popularity figures now stand at negative 10, negative 8 and negative 3 percentage points. According to POP's standard, no official falls under the category of "ideal" performance. Ambrose Lee and Wong Yan-lung now fall under the category of "successful". John Tsang, Matthew Cheung, 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". Ceajer Chan, Denise Yue and Rita Lau 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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| Special Announcement | Abstract | Latest Figures | Opinion Daily | Commentary | Future Release (Tentative) | |
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