香港大學民意研究計劃今日如期在《港大民意網站》(http://hkupop.hku.hk)發放市民對最熟悉政治團體評分、市民對立法會議員表現的滿意程度、及特首董建華評分的最新結果。自十月底開始，《民意網站》便每隔兩星期左右發放定期民意數據一次，供市民參考。鑒於兩星期後是聖誕假期，《民意網站》已經把十二月份餘下的定期數據發放日期調整如下：

十二月十七日星期一下午二時將會發放市民對中央及特區政府的信任程度、對中國前途、香港前途、及對一國兩制的信心。

十二月二十七日星期四下午二時將會發放二零零一年回顧與前瞻、市民對特區政府的滿意程度、及特首董建華的最新評分結果。

民意研究計劃自九六年九月起便每月發行《民意快訊》一次，及後更加引入不定期號外。基於各種原因，該等活動已分別在九九及零零年底停止，由《民意網站》漸次取代。《民意網站》將會在人力及資源許可的情況下漸次增加發放的項目和頻率，以便提供更多有用的數據。各界人士如對《民意網站》所載調查的方法有任何疑問，研究組的成員會樂於解答，但不會對調查結果作出評述。此等安排將會在人手充裕後再作檢討。《民意網站》由民意研究計劃主任鍾庭耀博士負責，與香港大學立場無關。

民意研究計劃一向主張傳媒在報導民意調查時應該同時提供有關調查的基本資料，如調查的對象、日期、樣本數目、是否隨機抽樣、回應比率、抽樣誤差等。（請參閱《民意網站》中有關專業守則部份。）雖然《民意網站》已盡量詳細公佈各項調查的方法和樣本資料，但傳媒在報導時往往有所不解，因此民意研究計劃在此就傳媒可以如何報導該等資料方面作出一點建議。

例一：傳媒在報導市民對最熟悉政治團體的最新評分結果時，可以說明「調查由港大民意研究計劃進行，在上月中以電話隨機訪問千多名18歲或以上巿民，回應率六成七 … 在九成半置信水平下，政治團體認知度的抽樣誤差少於三個百分比，支持度評分則少於1.8分。」

例二：傳媒在報導市民對立法會議員表現的滿意程度時，可以說明「調查由港大民意研究計劃進行，在上月初以電話隨機訪問千多名18歲或以上巿民，回應率六成四 … 在九成半置信水平下，抽樣誤差少於三個百分比。」

例三：傳媒在報導特首董建華的最新評分結果時，可以說明「調查由港大民意研究計劃進行，在上月中以電話隨機訪問千多名18歲或以上巿民，回應率愈六成七 … 在九成半置信水平下，評分的抽樣誤差為1.3分，統計上自八月中起變化不大。」

所謂「九成半置信水平」，是指倘若以不同隨機樣本重複進行有關調查100次，則95次的結果會在正負誤差之內，而九成半置信水平下的正負誤差是標準誤差的兩倍。民意研究計劃會繼續透過《民意網站》向讀者介紹有關統計常識。

The Public Opinion Programme (POP) at The University of Hong Kong today releases, as scheduled, via its website the "HKU POP SITE" (http://hkupop.hku.hk) the popularity rating of the most well-known political groups, people's satisfaction with the performance of Legislative Councillors, as well as Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa's latest popularity rating. Since October 30, the POP Site has been releasing findings of its regular surveys about once every two weeks. Two weeks from now, however, will be Christmas holiday. The POP Site has adjusted its schedule of data release for the rest of the month as follows:

On December 17, Monday, at 2 pm, it will release people's trust of the Central and HKSAR Governments, people's confidence in the future of China, Hong Kong, and one country two systems.

On December 27, Thursday, at 2 pm, it will release the result of the 2001 year-ender survey, people's satisfaction with the SAR Government, and Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa's latest popularity rating.

In September 1996, POP started to publish its survey findings regularly via its monthly newsletter, the "POP Express". Frequent releases of "POP Express Extra Issues" were later added. However, due to a number of reasons, these activities stopped by the end of 1999 and 2000 respectively, with their functions gradually taken over by the POP Site. Resources permit, the POP Site will gradually increase the frequency and content of its data releases. Shall anyone have any question regarding the research design of the surveys published in the POP Site, our team members will be happy to answer them, but we will not comment on the findings at this stage. Such an arrangement would be reviewed when we have more resources. Please note that Dr CHUNG Ting-yiu Robert, Director of Public Opinion Programme, is solely responsible for the works published in the POP Site, which does not represent the stand of the University of Hong Kong.

For quite a long time, POP has advocated that when covering opinion surveys, the media should follow the rules of minimum disclosure, whereby key information like target population, dates of fieldwork, sample size, whether the sample was drawn randomly, response rate, and sampling errors should also be reported. (Please refer to the POP Site under "Code of Practice" for more information.) However, although such information has been given in the POP Site for all its surveys, the media may have difficulty using it. POP would like to offer some suggestions here.

Example One: In reporting POP's latest ratings of the most well-known political groups, it could be mentioned that "the survey was conducted by POP in the middle of last month, over a thousand people aged 18 or above were interviewed by telephone at random, with a response rate of 67% … at 95% confidence level, the sampling errors of political groups' recognition rates were less than 3 percentage points, while those of support ratings were less than 1.8 marks."

Example Two: In reporting people's satisfaction with the performance of Legislative Councillors, it could be mentioned that "the survey was conducted by POP at the beginning of last month, over a thousand people aged 18 or above were interviewed by telephone at random, with a response rate of 64% … at 95% confidence level, the sampling error was less than 3 percentage points."

Example Three: In reporting Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa's latest rating, it could be mentioned that "the survey was conducted by POP in the middle of last month, over a thousand people aged 18 or above were interviewed by telephone at random, with a response rate of 67% … at 95% confidence level, the sampling error of the latest rating was less than 1.3 marks, statistically without much change since mid-August."

"At 95% confidence level" means that if we were to conduct the same survey 100 times, using the same question in each survey but with different random samples, we would expect 95 times getting a score within the error margins specified. The margin of error at 95% confidence level is twice the standard error calculated. POP will continue to explain these statistical concepts via its POP Site.

本網站乃香港大學新聞及傳媒研究中心民意研究計劃正式網站。網站一切內容乃個別學者的研究結果，與香港大學 立場無關。香港大學新聞及傳媒研究中心的民意研究計劃由民意研究計劃主任鍾庭耀博士負責。
The official website of the Public Opinion Programme, Journalism and Media Studies Centre, the University of Hong Kong. Everything in this website is the work of individual researchers, and does not represent the stand of the University of Hong Kong. Dr CHUNG Ting-yiu Robert, Director of Public Opinion Programme, is responsible for the work of the Public Opinion Programme at the Journalism and Media Studies Centre of the University of Hong Kong.