HKU POP releases the latest popularity figures of CE Donald Tsang and the HKSAR GovernmentBack
| Press Release on February 1, 2011 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Abstract | Latest Figures | Indepth Analysis | Opinion Daily | Commentary | Future Release (Tentative) | | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Abstract
Public Opinion Programme (POP) at the University of Hong Kong interviewed 1,018 Hong Kong people between 18 and 26 January 2011 by means of a random telephone survey conducted by real interviewers. Our latest survey shows that the popularity of CE Donald Tsang and the SAR Government has fluctuated within a narrow range over the past couple of months. CE's latest net popularity now stands at negative 8 percentage points, while that of the SAR Government stands at negative 2 percentage points. Further analysis shows that CE Donald Tsang receives significantly less support from the grassroots compared to other strata, while variations across strata is less significant in terms of satisfaction on government performance. Because it was in the last day of our fieldwork period that the government denied entry of people like Wang Dan, the effect of the incident cannot be fully reflected in our findings. 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 1,018 successful interviews, not 1,018 x 65.8% 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 +/-1.3 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.
Recent popularity figures of CE Donald Tsang and people's satisfaction of the overall performance of the HKSAR Government are summarized as follows:
[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 53.5 marks, and 38% supported him as the Chief Executive, the net approval rate is negative 8%. Regarding people's appraisal of the overall performance of the HKSAR Government, the latest figures revealed that 30% were satisfied, whereas 32% were dissatisfied, net satisfaction was negative 2%. The mean score is 2.9, meaning close to "half-half" in general. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Indepth Analysis
In the survey, we also asked respondents to classify themselves which one of the five social strata they belonged to. The options were: upper, upper-middle, middle-middle, lower-middle and lower stratum or grassroots. According to the choice of respondents, we grouped them into relatively upper, relatively middle and relatively lower strata, or in short form upper, middle and lower strata. Each stratum contains about one-third of the sample. The following table shows the mapping between respondents' choice and their final grouping:
Herewith further analysis by respondents' social strata:
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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 December 17 to 22, 2010 while this survey was conducted from January 18 to 26, 2011. 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
Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of POP, observed, "Our latest survey shows that the popularity of CE Donald Tsang and the SAR Government has fluctuated within a narrow range over the past couple of months. CE's latest net popularity now stands at negative 8 percentage points, while that of the SAR Government (in terms of satisfaction rate) stands at negative 2 percentage points. Further analysis shows that CE Donald Tsang receives significantly less support from the grassroots compared to other strata, while variations across strata is less significant in terms of satisfaction on government performance. As for the reasons accounting for such variations and the ups and downs of various figures, we leave it to our readers to form their own judgment using detailed records displayed in our 'Opinion Daily', suffice to say it was in the last day of our fieldwork period that the government denied entry of people like Wang Dan, so the effect of the incident cannot be fully reflected in our findings."
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Future Release (Tentative)
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| Abstract | Latest Figures | Indepth Analysis | Opinion Daily | Commentary | Future Release (Tentative) | | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
