HKU POP SITE releases popularity figures of CE Donald Tsang and the HKSAR GovernmentBack

The Public Opinion Programme (POP) at the University of Hong Kong interviewed 1,015 Hong Kong people between 18 and 20 May by means of a random telephone survey conducted by real interviewers. Taking the sample as a whole, CE Donald Tsang's popularity rating has remained below 50 marks for two consecutive times. His disapproval rate has also exceeded 50% for the first time since he took the office as CE. His net popularity now stands at negative 18 percentage points. People's dissatisfaction with the SAR Government, on the other hand, has also reached record high since January 2005. Its net popularity now also stands at negative 18 percentage points. Looking back, recent events which could have affected CE's popularity include CE's position on the by-election on May 16, the effect of the by-election itself, discussions on the government's strategies in promoting political reform, and CE's invitation to Audrey Eu for an open debate. Director of POP Robert Chung explains, because this survey happens to concur with CE's invitation to Audrey Eu for a debate, POP therefore further breaks down the figures in temporal order, and found that CE's popularity rating has in fact gone up slightly after he announced the debate, while his net and negative popularity recovers a bit. It thus seems that the debate has a positive initial effect on CE's popularity, but whether this effect can be sustained remains to be seen. The maximum sampling error of all percentage figures is +/-3 percentage points at 95% confidence level, while the sampling error of rating figures needs another calculation. The response rate of the survey is 73%.

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 1,015 successful interviews, not 1,015 x 72.5% response rate. In the past, many media made this mistake.
[3] The maximum sampling error of all approval and disapproval rates is +/-3 percentage points at 95% confidence level, while the sampling error of rating figure 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 rating not more than +/-1.4 and 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, 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.

POP today releases on schedule via the "POP SITE" the latest popularity figures of CE Donald Tsang and the HKSAR Government. 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 2009 year-end.

Date of survey	Overall sample size	Response rate	Maximum sampling error of percentages[6]
18-20/5/10	1,015	72.5%	+/-3%

[6] Errors are calculated at 95% confidence level using full sample size. "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. Questions using only sub-samples would have bigger sampling error. Sampling errors of ratings are calculated according to the distribution of the scores collected.

Recent popularity figures of Donald Tsang and people's satisfaction of the overall performance of the HKSAR Government are summarized as follows:

Date of survey	23-25/3/10	7-12/4/10	26-29/4/10	30/4-6/5/10	18-20/5/10	Latest Change
Sample base	1,012	1,009	1,010	1,031	1,015	--
Overall response rate	69.3%	65.3%	69.5%	72.4%	72.5%	--
Finding	Finding	Finding	Finding	Finding	Finding and error[7]	--
Rating of CE Donald Tsang	52.5	50.7[9]	51.8	49.2[9]	49.0+/-1.4	-0.2
Vote of confidence in CE Donald Tsang	38%[9]	34%[9]	37%	34%	33+/-3%	-1%
Vote of no confidence in CE Donald Tsang	46%[9]	49%	46%	48%	51+/-3%	+3%
Satisfaction rate of SARG performance[8]	30%	--	28%	--	25+/-3%	-3%
Dissatisfaction rate of SARG performance[8]	35%	--	38%	--	43+/-3%	+5%[9]

[7] 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 rating not more than +/-1.4, 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.
[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.

The latest survey showed that, CE Donald Tsang scored 49.0 marks, and 33% supported him as the Chief Executive. Regarding people's appraisal of the overall performance of the HKSAR Government, the latest figures revealed that 25% were satisfied, whereas 43% were dissatisfied. Because the survey happened to concur with CE's invitation to Audrey Eu for an open debate on May 20, POP therefore breaks down the figures in temporal order to facilitate further analysis, as follows:

Date of survey	18-19/5/10	20/5/10	Change	18-20/5/10
Sample base	758	257	--	1,015
Overall response rate	--	--	--	72.5%
Rating of CE Donald Tsang	48.8+/-1.5	49.4+/-2.6	+0.6	49.0+/-1.4
Vote of confidence in CE Donald Tsang	33+/-3%	32+/-6%	-1%	33+/-3%
Vote of no confidence in CE Donald Tsang	51+/-4%	49+/-6%	-2%	51+/-3%
Satisfaction rate of SARG performance	25+/-3%	25+/-5%	--	25+/-3%
Dissatisfaction rate of SARG performance	43+/-4%	41+/-6%	-2%	43+/-3%

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 26 to 29, 2010 while this survey was conducted from May 18 to 20, 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.

20/5/10	Chief Executive Donald Tsang invites Audrey Eu to a TV debate on political reform.
17/5/10	Many newspapers on the following day follow and discuss the impacts of the Legislative Council by-election on Hong Kong's political development.
16/5/10	The turnout rate of the Legislative Council by-election is less than 20%.
13/5/10	The Office of the Ombudsman criticizes the management quality of the Fire Services Department.
11/5/10	Hong Kong government auctions a piece of land in Tung Chung, but the response was poor.
9/5/10	Many newspapers follow up and discuss the attacking case in Kwai Shing East Estate.
8/5/10	A madman kills two and hurts three people in Kwai Shing East Estate.
6/5/10	Many newspapers report and discuss the housing policy in Hong Kong.
3/5/10	The Urban Renewal Authority announces 8 new measures on property sales.
1/5/10	Large amount of people visits the Shanghai World Expo.

 

Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of POP, observed, "Taking the sample as a whole, CE Donald Tsang's popularity rating has remained below 50 marks for two consecutive times. His disapproval rate has also exceeded 50% for the first time since he took the office as CE. His net popularity now stands at negative 18 percentage points. People's dissatisfaction with the SAR Government, on the other hand, has also reached record high since January 2005. Its net popularity now also stands at negative 18 percentage points. Looking back, recent events which could have affected CE's popularity include CE's position on the by-election on May 16, the effect of the by-election itself, discussions on the government's strategies in promoting political reform, and CE's invitation to Audrey Eu for an open debate. Because this survey happens to concur with CE's invitation to Audrey Eu for a debate, POP therefore further breaks down the figures in temporal order, and found that CE's popularity rating has in fact gone up slightly after he announced the debate, while his net and negative popularity recovers a bit. It thus seems that the debate has a positive initial effect on CE's popularity, but whether this effect can be sustained remains to be seen."

• May 27, 2010 (Thursday) 1pm to 2pm: Rating of top ten political groups and people's most familiar political figures
• June 1, 2010 (Tuesday) 1pm to 2pm: June Fourth anniversary survey