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

Press Release on July 27, 2010

Abstract

The Public Opinion Programme (POP) at the University of Hong Kong interviewed 1,007 Hong Kong people between 19 and 21 July by means of a random telephone survey conducted by real interviewers. Our latest survey shows that CE Donald Tsang's support rating has gone back to 50 marks, for the first time since April, thereby switching off the alert signal. However, his disapproval rate is still high at 50%, giving a net popularity of negative 15 percentage points. The situation is still grave. As for the SAR Government, compared to a month ago, people's general satisfaction rate has changed very little, while its net popularity has improved a bit to become negative 11 percentage points. Looking back, recent events which could have affected the popularity of CE and the government include the passing of the political reform proposal, the July 1 rally, and the passing of the minimum wage bill at Legislative Council. 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 66%.

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 1,007 successful interviews, not 1,007 x 66.2% response rate. In the past, many media made this mistake.
[3] The maximum sampling error of percentages 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.

Latest Figures

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]
19-21/7/2010	1,007	66.2%	+/-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	18-20/5/2010	1-3/6/2010	18-22/6/2010	5-8/7/2010	19-21/7/2010	Latest Change
Sample base	1,015	1,010	1,009	1,022	1,007	--
Overall response rate	72.5%	67.9%	66.7%	63.6%	66.2%	--
Finding	Finding	Finding	Finding	Finding	Finding and error^[7]	--
Rating of CE Donald Tsang	49.0	49.2	48.5	49.9	50.3+/-1.4	+0.4
Vote of confidence in CE Donald Tsang	33%	35%	33%	32%	35+/-3%	+3%
Vote of no confidence in CE Donald Tsang	51%	51%	51%	52%	50+/-3%	-2%
Satisfaction rate of SARG performance^[8]	25%	--	31%^[9]	--	30+/-3%	-1%
Dissatisfaction rate of SARG performance^[8]	43%^[9]	--	44%	--	41+/-3%	-3%
Mean value^[8]	2.7 +/-0.1 (Base=1,008)	--	2.7 +/-0.1 (Base=996)	--	2.8 +/-0.1 (Base=1,000)	+0.1

[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. The mean value is calculated by quantifying all individual responses into 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 marks according to their degree of positive level, where 1 is the lowest and 5 the highest, and then calculate the sample mean.
[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 50.3 marks, and 35% supported him as the Chief Executive. Regarding people's appraisal of the overall performance of the HKSAR Government, the latest figures revealed that 30% were satisfied, whereas 41% were dissatisfied. The mean score is 2.8, meaning close to "half-half" in general.

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 June 18 to 22, 2010 while this survey was conducted from July 19 to 21, 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.

19/7/10	Hong Kong and Mainland China sign a new Renminbi settlement agreement.
17/7/10	Legislative Council passes minimum wage bill.
16/7/10	Many newspapers on the following day report and discuss Hong Kong tourism scandal and its problem on regulation.
15/7/10	Government announces to increase public housing rent.
13/7/10	Chief Executive claims to put emphasis on improving citizens' livelihood in his policy.
9/7/10	Hong Kong government launches public consultation on free-to-air TV license.
6/7/10	Hong Kong government consults public about the supply of columbarium.
5/7/10	Government investigates the property selling project of 39 Conduit Road of Henderson Land Development Company Limited.
1/7/10	Many newspapers on the following day report and discuss the July 1 demonstration and also the public criticism to the Democratic party.
25/6/10	Legislative Council passes the 2012 Legislative Council election proposal.
24/6/10	Legislative Council passes the 2012 Chief Executive selection proposal.
21/6/10	Democratic Party supports political reform package through internal election.

Commentary

Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of POP, observed, "Our latest survey shows that CE Donald Tsang's support rating has gone back to 50 marks, for the first time since April, thereby switching off the alert signal. However, his disapproval rate is still high at 50%, giving a net popularity of negative 15 percentage points. The situation is still grave. As for the SAR Government, compared to a month ago, people's general satisfaction rate has changed very little, while its net popularity has improved a bit to become negative 11 percentage points. Looking back, recent events which could have affected the popularity of CE and the government include the passing of the political reform proposal, the July 1 rally, and the passing of the minimum wage bill at Legislative Council. We leave it to our readers to form their own judgment using detailed records displayed in our "Opinion Daily"."

Future Release (Tentative)

August 3, 2010 (Tuesday) 1pm to 2pm: Popularity of Executive Council members