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

Press Release on November 30, 2010

Abstract

The Public Opinion Programme (POP) at the University of Hong Kong interviewed 1,001 Hong Kong people between 17 and 27 November by means of a random telephone survey conducted by real interviewers. Our latest survey shows that the popularity of CE Donald Tsang has significantly increased, back to the level after he delivered his policy address in mid-October. Tsang's support rating now stands at 55.3 marks, while his net popularity stands at negative 2 percentage points. As for the SAR Government, compared to a month ago, people's general satisfaction rate has slightly increased, while dissatisfaction rate has significantly decreased. Its net popularity has gone up from negative 4 percentage points to positive 1 percentage point. Looking back, recent events which could have affected the popularity of CE and the government include the introduction of new measures to combat the speculation of property, and discussions about minimum wage legislation. The maximum sampling error of all percentage figures is +/-3 percentage points at 95% confidence level, while that of rating figures is below +/-1.2 marks. The response rate of the rating survey is 70%.

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 1,001 successful interviews, not 1,001 x 69.7% 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 +/-1.2 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 mid-year 2010.

Herewith the contact information for the latest survey of popularity of CE and SAR Government:

Date of survey	Overall sample size	Response rate	Maximum sampling error of percentages^[6]
17-27/11/2010	1,001	69.7%	+/-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	5-8/10/10	13/10/10^[9]	26-30/10/10	2-6/11/10	17-27/11/10	Latest Change
Sample base	1,014	1,020	1,009	1,008	1,001	--
Overall response rate	60.0%	66.9%	63.3%	64.1%	69.7%	--
Finding	Finding	Finding	Finding	Finding	Finding and error^[7]	--
Rating of CE Donald Tsang	55.4^[10]	56.2	53.9^[10]	52.7	55.3+/-1.2	+2.6^[10]
Vote of confidence in CE Donald Tsang	42%	41%	39%	41%	40+/-3%	-1%
Vote of no confidence in CE Donald Tsang	43%^[10]	41%	45%^[10]	47%	42+/-3%	-5%^[10]
Satisfaction rate of SARG performance^[8]	--	--	30%^[10]	--	31+/-3%	+1%
Dissatisfaction rate of SARG performance^[8]	--	--	34%^[10]	--	30+/-3%	-4%^[10]
Mean value^[8]	--	--	2.9^[10]+/-0.1 (Base=1,003)	--	3.0+/-0.1 (Base=989)	+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 +/-1.2, 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.
[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] These questions only use sub-samples of the survey concerned. The sub-sample sizes of questions on CE's support rating and hypothetical voting were 581 and 563 respectively.
[10] 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 55.3 marks, and 40% supported him as the Chief Executive. Regarding people's appraisal of the overall performance of the HKSAR Government, the latest figures revealed that 31% were satisfied, whereas 30% were dissatisfied. The mean score is 3.0, 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 October 26 to 30, 2010 while this survey was conducted from November 17 to 27, 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.

19/11/10	HK government announces new measures to curb short-term property speculation.
13/11/10	Hu Jintao and Donald Tsang meet at the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation Leaders Meeting in Yokohama.
10/11/10	Minimum wage payment set at $28 per hour.
6/11/10	Café de Coral announces withdrawing no-paid meal breaks.
4/11/10	The US Federal Reserve announces its second round of quantitative easing.
1/11/10	Monetary Authority warns that market adjustments will cause massive shocks.

Commentary

Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of POP, observed, "Our latest survey shows that the popularity of CE Donald Tsang has significantly increased, back to the level after he delivered his policy address in mid-October. Tsang's support rating now stands at 55.3 marks, while his net popularity stands at negative 2 percentage points. As for the SAR Government, compared to a month ago, people's general satisfaction rate has slightly increased, while dissatisfaction rate has significantly decreased. Its net popularity has gone up from negative 4 percentage points to positive 1 percentage point. Looking back, recent events which could have affected the popularity of CE and the government include the introduction of new measures to combat the speculation of property, and discussions about minimum wage legislation. As for other reasons affecting the ups and downs of these figures, we leave it to our readers to form their own judgment using detailed records displayed in our "Opinion Daily"."

Future Release (Tentative)

December 7, 2010 (Tuesday) 1pm to 2pm: Rating of top ten political groups