HKU POP releases figures of people's satisfaction with Legco members in general, the Hong Kong Police Force and the PLA Hong Kong Garrison Back
| Press Release on July 12, 2011 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Abstract | Latest Figures | Indepth Analysis | Opinion Daily | Commentary | Future Releases (Tentative) | | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Abstract
The Public Opinion Programme (POP) of the University of Hong Kong interviewed 1,036 Hong Kong people between 23 and 29 June 2011 by means of a random telephone survey conducted by real interviewers. The survey shows that compared to three months ago, people's dissatisfaction with the overall performance of Legco members has gone down again, to just 10% which is record low since the survey series began in 1998. Legco members' net popularity now stands at negative 41 percentage points, probably due to the row over the Legco Vacancy Replacement Mechanism. (Note: The net popularity of the SAR Government for the same period is negative 30 percentage points, as published before.) As for the two disciplinary forces, people's satisfaction with the Police Force has dropped, but below significance level, while that of the PLA Hong Kong Garrison has changed even less, with dissatisfaction level remaining near zero. The net popularity of the Police Force and the PLA Hong Kong Garrison now stand at positive 56 and positive 51 percentage points respectively. Further analysis shows that the"non-post 80s" citizens are significantly more dissatisfied with the Legco members than the"post 80s". It should be noted, however, that people's satisfaction with Legco members in general includes those returned by geographical as well as functional constituencies, and covering members with different stances on the replacement mechanism. It is not a direct measurement of individual Legco members' performance. The maximum sampling error of the survey is between +/-1 and +/-4 percentage points at 95% confidence level, response rate being 69%.
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 1,036 successful interviews, not 1,036 x 68.7% response rate. In the past, many media made this mistake. [3] The maximum sampling error of all satisfaction and dissatisfaction rates is between +/-1 and +/-4 percentage points 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. When quoting these figures, journalists can state "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. [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 figures of people's satisfaction with the performance of Legislative Council members in general, the Hong Kong Police Force (HKPF) and the People's Liberation Army Hong Kong Garrison (PLA). 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 year end 2010. Herewith the contact information for the latest survey:
[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.
Recent figures are summarized as follows:
[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 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.
[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. [10] Starting from 2011, these questions only uses sub-samples of the tracking surveys concerned, the sample size for each question also varies. Results of survey conducted in the second half of June revealed that 10% of the respondents were satisfied with the overall performance of the Legco members, and 51% were dissatisfied. As for the performance of the HKPF, 67% were satisfied while 11% were dissatisfied. Besides, 52% were satisfied with the performance of the PLA stationed in Hong Kong, whereas only 1% were dissatisfied. The mean score of the Legco members is 2.4, meaning in between"half-half" and"quite dissatisfied", while the respective mean scores of the two disciplinary forces are 3.6 and 3.9, meaning close to"satisfied" in general. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Indepth Analysis
In the survey, we also asked respondents for their age. If they were reluctant to give their exact age, they could give us a range. According to their answers, we grouped them into post 80s and non-post 80s. Herewith further analysis of the overall performance of Legco members by respondents' age:
[11] Differences among sub-groups are tested to be statistically significant at 95% confidence level.
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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 was conducted from March 14 to 23, 2011 while this survey was conducted from June 23 to 29, 2011. In between these two surveys, 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 Public Opinion Programme, observed,"Our survey conducted before July 1 shows that compared to three months ago, people's dissatisfaction with the overall performance of Legco members has gone down again, to just 10% which is record low since the survey series began in 1998. Legco members' net popularity now stands at negative 41 percentage points, probably due to the row over the Legco Vacancy Replacement Mechanism. (Note: The net popularity of the SAR Government for the same period is negative 30 percentage points, as published before.) As for the two disciplinary forces, people's satisfaction with the Police Force has dropped, but below significance level, while that of the PLA Hong Kong Garrison has changed even less, with dissatisfaction level remaining near zero. The net popularity of the Police Force and the PLA Hong Kong Garrison now stand at positive 56 and positive 51 percentage points respectively. Further analysis shows that the"non-post 80s" citizens are significantly more dissatisfied with the Legco members than the"post 80s". It should be noted, however, that people's satisfaction with Legco members in general includes those returned by geographical as well as functional constituencies, and covering members with different stances on the replacement mechanism. As for the reasons affecting 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"."
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Future Releases (Tentative)
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| Abstract | Latest Figures | Indepth Analysis | Opinion Daily | Commentary | Future Releases (Tentative) | | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
