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

Press Release on January 31, 2012

Special Announcement

The Public Opinion Programme (POP) at the University of Hong Kong will conduct an instant survey tomorrow evening after Financial Secretary John Tsang gives his Budget Talk. Results will be published by our media sponsors on the same day, followed by an open release the following day. Any media which would like to sponsor the survey in order to obtain the results tomorrow evening please contact us. Meanwhile, the "PopCon" e-platform (http://popcon.hk) hosted by POP is now running a "CE Nomination Guessing Game" to measure users' intelligent guesses. The latest situation is that Henry Tang leads Leung Chun-ying and Albert Ho with guestimates of 624, 274 and 208 nominations respectively.

Abstract

POP interviewed 1,020 Hong Kong people between 12 and 17 January 2012 by means of a random telephone survey conducted by real interviewers. Our latest survey shows that the support rating of CE Donald Tsang is 49.2 marks, slightly increased by 1.2 marks compared to the last survey and just within sampling error. His approval rate now stands at 26%, disapproval rate at 66%, giving a net popularity of negative 40 percentage points, which is slightly better than last time. As for the SAR Government, its popularity has also increased compared to a month ago. Its satisfaction rate now stands at 26%, dissatisfaction rate at 45%, giving a net satisfaction rate of negative 19 percentage points. Indepth analysis shows that respondents who aged between 30 and 49 are most dissatisfied with the performance of the SAR Government, with a dissatisfaction rate near 55%. The maximum sampling error of all percentage figures is between +/-3 and +/-4 percentage points at 95% confidence level, while the sampling error of rating figures needs another calculation. The response rate of the survey is 65%.

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 1,020 successful interviews, not 1,020 x 64.8% response rate. In the past, many media made this mistake.
[3] The maximum sampling error of percentages is +/-4 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 +/-4% 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, 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 2011.

Date of survey	Overall sample size	Response rate	Maximum sampling error of percentages^[6]
12-17/1/2012	1,020	64.8%	+/-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 CE Donald Tsang and people's satisfaction of the overall performance of the HKSAR Government are summarized as follows:

Date of survey	15-21/11/11	1-5/12/11	14-28/12/11	3-6/1/12	12-17/1/12	Latest change
Sample base	1,023	1,009	1,035	1,007	1,020	--
Overall response rate	69.7%	67.7%	65.9%	65.1%	64.8%	--
Finding	Finding	Finding	Finding	Finding	Finding and error^[7]	--
Rating of CE Donald Tsang	49.8	50.2	49.0	48.0	49.2+/-1.3	+1.2
Vote of confidence in CE Donald Tsang	24%^[9]	26%	21%^[9]	25%^[9]	26+/-3%	+1%
Vote of no confidence in CE Donald Tsang	67%^[9]	65%	71%^[9]	68%	66+/-3%	-2%
Net approval rate	-43%	-39%	-50%	-43%	-40%	+3%
Satisfaction rate of SARG performance^[8]	24%	--	22%	--	26+/-4%	+4%
Dissatisfaction rate of SARG performance^[8]	45%	--	47%	--	45+/-4%	-2%
Net satisfaction rate	-21%	--	-25%	--	-19%	+6%
Mean value^[8]	2.7+/-0.1 (Base=506)	--	2.6+/-0.1 (Base=508)	--	2.7+/-0.1 (Base=552)	+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 +/-1.3, 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. Starting from March 2011, this question only uses sub-samples of the tracking surveys concerned. The sample size for this series is 558.
[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 49.2 marks, and 26% supported him as the Chief Executive. Regarding people's appraisal of the overall performance of the HKSAR Government, the latest figures revealed that 26% were satisfied, whereas 45% were dissatisfied. The mean score is 2.7, meaning in between "half-half" and "quite dissatisfied".

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. Herewith further analysis of the satisfaction rate of SARG performance by respondents' age:

Date of survey：12-17/1/2012		18-29	30-49	50 or above	Overall sample
Satisfaction/ dissatisfaction rate of SARG performance^[10]	Satisfaction	22+/-8% (24)	19+/-5% (44)	35+/-6% (76)	26+/-4% (144)
	Half-half	39+/-9% (43)	26+/-6% (60)	25+/-6% (53)	28+/-4% (156)
	Dissatisfaction	39+/-9% (44)	54+/-7% (124)	37+/-7% (81)	45+/-4% (249)
	Don't know/ Hard to say	0+/-0% (0)	0+/-0% (1)	3+/-2% (6)	1+/-1% (7)
	Total	100% (111)	100% (229)	100% (217)	100% (556)

[10] Differences among sub-groups are tested to be statistically significant at 95% confidence level.

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 14 to 28 December, 2011 while this survey was conducted from 12 to 17 January, 2012. 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.

10/1/12	The Environment Bureau launched a three-month public consultation on the introduction of charging to reduce the generation of solid waste.
4/1/12	The government has listed 25 sites reclamation and man-made islands for reclamation to create the land bank.
2/1/12	Nine water samples containing Legionella bacteria were found in the Legislative Council Complex at Tamar.
26/12/11	Donald Tsang on his final duty visit to Beijing.
21/12/11	The Government killed 17000 live chickens because of bird flu.
17/12/11	Many newspapers continue to report the news about the increase of electricity tariff.

Commentary

Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of POP, observed, "Our latest survey shows that the support rating of CE Donald Tsang is 49.2 marks, slightly increased by 1.2 marks compared to the last survey and just within sampling error. His approval rate now stands at 26%, disapproval rate at 66%, giving a net popularity of negative 40 percentage points, which is slightly better than last time. As for the SAR Government, its popularity has also increased compared to a month ago. Its satisfaction rate now stands at 26%, dissatisfaction rate at 45%, giving a net satisfaction rate of negative 19 percentage points. Indepth analysis shows that respondents who aged between 30 and 49 are most dissatisfied with the performance of the SAR Government, with a dissatisfaction rate near 55%. As for the 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 Releases (Tentative)

February 2, 2012 (Thursday) 1pm to 2pm: Budget instant survey
February 7, 2012 (Tuesday) 1pm to 2pm: Budget first follow-up survey