Public Perception Survey on Hong Kong’s CharacteristicsBack

Research Background

In February 2018, Project Citizens Foundation commissioned Public Opinion Programme (POP) at The University of Hong Kong to conduct this “Public Perception Survey on Hong Kong’s Characteristics”, which aims to gauge what are the characteristics Hong Kong people treasure the most as well as their appraisals on the importance of various characteristics.

The research instrument used in this study was designed by the POP Team after consulting Project Citizens Foundation. Meanwhile, fieldwork operations, data collection and data analysis were conducted independently by the POP Team, without interference from any outside party. In other words, POP was given full autonomy to the research design and operations, in return, POP would take full responsibility for all the findings reported herewith.

Research Design

This was a random telephone survey using landline and mobile numbers conducted by telephone interviewers under close supervision. All data were collected by our interviewers using a Web-based Computer Assisted Telephone Interview (Web-CATI) system which allowed real-time data capture and consolidation. To ensure data quality, on top of on-site supervision and random checking, voice recording, screen capturing and camera surveillance were used to monitor the interviewers’ performance.

To minimize sampling bias, telephone numbers (including landline and mobile) were randomly generated using known prefixes assigned to telecommunication services providers under the Numbering Plan provided by the Office of the Communications Authority (OFCA). Invalid numbers were then eliminated according to computer and manual dialing records to produce the final sample.

The target population of this survey was Hong Kong residents aged 18 or above who speak Cantonese. In the landline sample, if more than one subject had been available, selection was made using the “next birthday rule” which selected the person who had his/her birthday next. Telephone interviews were conducted during the period of 27 April to 7 May, 2018. A total of 1,010 qualified respondents were successfully interviewed, including 671 landline and 339 mobile cases. As shown in the calculation of Appendix I, the effective response rate of this survey was 58.6%, and the standard sampling error for percentages based on this sample was less than 1.6 percentage points. In other words, the sampling error for all percentages using the total sample was less than plus/minus 3.1 percentage points at 95% confidence level.

To ensure representativeness of the findings, the raw data collected have been rim-weighted according to provisional figures obtained from the Census and Statistics Department regarding the gender-age distribution of the Hong Kong population aged 18 or above in 2016 mid-year and the educational attainment (highest level attended) distribution and economic activity status distribution collected in the 2017 Census. All figures in this report are based on the weighted sample.