HKU POP releases findings on people's expectation of CE's Policy AddressBack

Press Release on October 11, 2011

Special Announcement

As in previous years, Public Opinion Programme (POP) at the University of Hong Kong will conduct an instant survey after the Chief Executive delivers his policy address tomorrow (October 12, 2011). Results will be announced the following day (October 13), after which POP will conduct follow-up surveys which would be released in due course. If individual media would like to obtain the results of our instant survey through sponsorship on the day that the Policy Address is announced, please contact us today, so that we can make special arrangements.

Abstract

POP conducted a double stage survey on people's expectation of CE's Policy Address in late September and early October, by means of random telephone surveys conducted by real interviewers. We use a two-stage design to study both the absolute and relative importance of different policy items. In our latest survey, whether prompted or not, "housing" problem is considered to be the most pressing policy area to be handled in CE's Policy Address. In terms of absolute percentage of importance, "medical policy" ranks second, followed by "economic development", "labour and employment" and "social welfare". The figures are all over 80%. Compared to this time last year, for the four repeated items, their absolute importance has not changed much. "Medical policy" dropped out of the list two years ago, it comes back this year to take up the second position, with an increase of 4 percentage points compared to three years ago. "Education" issue which ranked fifth last year has dropped out of the list. The maximum sampling error of the survey is between +/-3 and +/-4 percentage points at 95% confidence level, response rate of the first stage and second stage survey being 68% and 66% respectively.

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 the first stage survey is 1,000 successful interviews, not 1,000 x 67.6% response rate, while the sample size of the second stage survey is another 1,035, not 1,035 x 66.0% response rate. In the past, many media made this mistake.
[3] The maximum sampling error of all percentages is between +/-3 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 figures of this survey, journalists should refrain from reporting the decimal places, because sampling errors do not entail this kind of precision.
[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 findings on people's expectation of the seventh Policy Address of CE Donald Tsang. 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-2011 for both the first and second stage survey. Herewith the contact information for the latest survey:

Date of survey	Overall sample size	Response rate	Sampling error of percentages^[6]
19-27/9/11 (First Stage)	1,000	67.6%	+/-3%
28/9-5/10/11 (Second Stage)	1,035	66.0%	+/-3%

[6] 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 sample error.

According to our first stage survey conducted in late September, when asked to name unaided one issue that CE Donald Tsang should focus on in his seventh Policy Address to be announced this Wednesday, 35% of the respondents wished he would take "housing" as his first priority, while 23% chose "economic development" and a respective of 9%, 5%, 5% and 5% opted for "social welfare", "labour and employment", "medical policy" and "education". Besides, "political development", "human rights and freedom" and "civic education" took up 2%, 1% and 1% respectively, while 12% of the respondents failed to give a specific answer. Please refer to the "HKU POP SITE" for detailed figures.

In order to further study people's expectations, another survey was then conducted whereby respondents were asked to evaluate each of the 5 top priority items individually, on a 5-point scale, how important it is for each item to be tackled in the Policy Address. Results compared to those of last 2 years are summarized below:

Date of survey	6-11/10/09	5-8/10/10	28/9-5/10/11	Latest Change
Sample base	501	1,014	501-557	--
Overall response rate	67.5%	60.0%	66.0%	--
Findings (with sampling error)	Finding	Finding	Finding^[7]	--
Perceived housing issues as "very important"	--	71%	69+/-4%	-2%
Perceived housing issues as "quite important"	--	17%	20+/-4%	+3%
"Very" + "quite important"^[8]	--	88%	89+/-3%	+1%
Mean value^[11]	--	4.6+/-0.1 (Base=1,003)	4.6+/-0.1 (Base=491)	--
Perceived medical policy issues as "very important"	--	--	60+/-4%	--
Perceived medical policy issues as "quite important"	--	--	28+/-4%	--
"Very" + "quite important"^[8]	--	--	88+/-3%	--
Mean value^[11]	--	--	4.5+/-0.1 (Base=528)	--
Perceived economic development issues as "very important"	69%^[9]	59%^[9]	63+/-4%	+4%
Perceived economic development issues as "quite important"	20%	26%^[9]	23+/-4%	-3%
"Very" + "quite important"^[8]	89%	85%^[9][10]	86+/-3%	+1%
Mean value^[11]	4.6+/-0.1 (Base=493)	4.4+/-0.1^[9] (Base=993)	4.5+/-0.1 (Base=535)	+0.1
Perceived labour and employment issues as "very important"	73%^[9]	56%^[9]	54+/-4%	-2%
Perceived labour and employment issues as "quite important"	18%^[9]	29%^[9]	30+/-4%	+1%
"Very" + "quite important"^[8]	92%^[9]	85%^[9][10]	84+/-3%	-1%
Mean value^[11]	4.7+/-0.1^[9] (Base=494)	4.4+/-0.1^[9] (Base=1,003)	4.4+/-0.1 (Base=510)	--
Perceived social welfare issues as "very important"	46%^[9]	56%^[9]	58+/-4%	+2%
Perceived social welfare issues as "quite important"	33%^[9]	29%^[9]	25+/-4%	-4%
"Very" + "quite important"^[8]	79%	85%^[9][10]	83+/-3%	-2%
Mean value^[11]	4.2+/-0.1^[9] (Base=495)	4.4+/-0.1^[9] (Base=1,002)	4.4+/-0.1 (Base=500)	--
Perceived education issues as "very important"	60%	53%^[9]	--	--
Perceived education issues as "quite important"	26%	29%	--	--
"Very" + "quite important"^[8]	86%	82%^[9]	--	--
Mean value^[11]	4.5+/-0.1 (Base=495)	4.3+/-0.1^[9] (Base=994)	--	--
Perceived political development issues as "very important"	29%	--	--	--
Perceived political development issues as "quite important"	33%	--	--	--
"Very" + "quite important"^[8]	62%^[9]	--	--	--
Mean value^[11]	3.9+/-0.1 (Base=469)	--	--	--

[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.
[8] Percentages in this column may not be equal to the sum of percentages shown in the columns of "very" and "quite important" due to the round-off problem.
[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] In one decimal place, a respective of 85.4%, 85.3% and 84.9% perceived the issue of economic development, labour and employment, and social welfare as "important" in that survey.
[11] The mean value is calculated by quantifying all individual responses into 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 marks according to their degree of importance level, where 1 is the lowest and 5 the highest, and then calculate the sample mean.

When asked to evaluate each item individually, housing issue topped the list, as 89% of the respondents said CE Donald Tsang needed to tackle this issue in the coming Policy Address. Medical policy, economic development, labour and employment and social welfare followed, as 88%, 86%, 84% and 83% thought they needed to be tackled in the Policy Address correspondingly. The mean score of housing issue is 4.6, meaning close to "very important", while the respective mean scores of the other four issues are 4.5, 4.5, 4.4 and 4.4, meaning close to "quite important" in general.

Commentary

Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of Public Opinion Programme, observed, "Six years ago we began to use a two-stage design to study people's expectation of the upcoming Policy Address. We want to study both the absolute and relative importance of different policy items. In our latest survey, whether prompted or not, "housing" problem is considered to be the most pressing policy area to be handled in CE's Policy Address. In terms of absolute percentage of importance, "medical policy" ranks second, followed by "economic development", "labour and employment" and "social welfare". The figures are all over 80%. Compared to this time last year, for the four repeated items, their absolute importance has not changed much. "Medical policy" dropped out of the list two years ago, it comes back this year to take up the second position, with an increase of 4 percentage points compared to three years ago. "Education」 issue which ranked fifth last year has dropped out of the list."

Future Releases (Tentative)

October 13, 2011 (Thursday) 1pm to 2pm: Policy Address Instant Poll
October 18, 2011 (Tuesday) 1pm to 2pm: Policy Address First Follow-up Survey