HKU POP releases a Budget instant pollBack
| Press Release on February 2, 2012 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Special Announcement | Abstract | Background | Latest Figures | Indepth Analysis | Future Releases (Tentative) | | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Special Announcement
The "PopCon" e-platform (http://popcon.hk) hosted by the Public Opinion Programme (POP) at the University of Hong Kong is now running the "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 654, 291 and 193 nominations respectively.
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Abstract
POP interviewed 1,015 Hong Kong people last night (1 February) by means of a random telephone survey conducted by real interviewers. After excluding those respondents who said they had heard nothing of the Budget, this year's instant survey shows that 38% are satisfied with the Budget, 26% are dissatisfied and 33% say "half-half". The average rating registered for the Budget is 57.0 marks, with a recognition rate of 79%. All in all, across all 5 Budgets delivered by John Tsang, as well as all 15 Budgets after the handover, people's instant satisfaction of this year's Budget is slightly below average. The survey also shows that the latest rating of FS John Tsang after his Budget Talk is 54.1 marks, with approval and disapproval rates of 29% and 26% respectively. Further analysis shows that older respondents tend to be more dissatisfied with the Budget, and tend to support John Tsang's reappointment as FS. The maximum sampling error of all percentages is +/-3 percentage points at 95% confidence level, while the sampling error of rating figures and indepth analysis needs another calculation. The response rate of the survey is 71%.
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 1,015 successful interviews, not 1,015 x 71.1% response rate. In the past, many media made this mistake. [3] The maximum sampling error of all percentages is +/-3 percentage points at 95% confidence level, while the sampling error of rating figures 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 various ratings not more than +/-1.4 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. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Background
Since 1992, HKUPOP has been conducting Policy Address instant surveys every year. From 1998 onwards, we expanded our instant surveys to cover the Budget Talks. In free and democratic societies, instant surveys are indispensable sources of free information. Combined with appropriate follow-up surveys, and in parallel to expert analyses, they give a multi-dimensional picture of opinion development. They are an important part of a society's interactive development. Starting 2008, we split up previous years' instant survey into two surveys. In our first survey, we measure people's overall appraisal of the Budget, their rating of the Budget, their change in confidence towards Hong Kong's future, and FS's popularity. In our second survey, we focus on people's reactions towards different government proposals, their satisfaction with the government's fiscal policies, and other relevant issues. Starting 2011, we revised our design to concentrate on people's appraisal of the Budget and FS's popularity in our instant survey, and move the remaining questions to our follow-up survey. There is no change to our operation this year.
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Latest Figures
The findings of the Budget instant poll released by the POP SITE today 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. Herewith the contact information of various surveys:
People's satisfaction figures with this year's Budget are summarized below together with the previous findings:
[8] Sub-samples exclude those respondents who said they had heard nothing of the Budget, while "recognition rates" used to indicate people's knowledge level further exclude those who answered "don't know / hard to say". [9] Sub-sample base has excluded those who said they had heard nothing of the Budget. Sampling errors of ratings are calculated according to the distribution of the scores collected. Since the base is smaller, the sampling error is bigger. [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. After excluding those respondents who said they had heard nothing of the Budget, this year's instant survey shows that 38% are satisfied with the Budget, 26% are dissatisfied and 33% say "half-half". The average rating registered for the Budget is 57.0 marks, with a recognition rate of 79%. Figures on various Financial Secretaries' popularity before and after their Budget Speeches since 2001[11] are summarized as follows:
[12] All errors 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. Questions using only sub-samples would have bigger sample error. Sampling errors of ratings are calculated according to the distribution of the scores collected. [13] These questions only use the concerned sub-samples for the tracking surveys between 2006 and 2010. [14] The frequency of FS rating and approval rate was different before November 2005. [15] 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 survey shows that the latest rating of FS John Tsang after his Budget Talk is 54.1 marks, with approval and disapproval rates of 29% and 26% respectively. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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 18-29, 30-49, and 50 years or older. Herewith further analysis of public's satisfaction rate of the Budget, and John Tsang's rating and approval rates by respondents' age:
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Future Releases (Tentative)
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| Special Announcement | Abstract | Background | Latest Figures | Indepth Analysis | Future Releases (Tentative) | | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
