TNAG-1723-FCO40-2436-Minutes-and-Hansards-of-the-Legislative-Council-of-Hong-Kong-1988 — Page 96

8.

indicates all too clearly

their comprehension.

that this question is simply beyond

Fourthly, as to

the order in which these options

appe ar in the Section F3,

experts have advised me that it is

unfair to present these options always in the same order SO

that every respondent would have heard the option: "no change"

before the others. I am told that it is normal survey practice

to rotate the order in which the options are presented to avoid

what is called "order bias". Otherwise the respondents would

inclined to accept the first option instead of the

be mo re

others.

This is particularly so when the entire interview took

a long time as in this case. As a result, the prejudice to

direct elections for 1988 is very great because the only option

which allowed for a "Yes" answer to the introduction of direct

elections in 1988 came last in the question.

Fifthly, experts have also told me of another flaw

interviewers were instructed to deal with

in the way the

another part of the Questionnaire, namely, Section F5. The

experts have called it "the wrong skip". According to Section

F. only those respondents who had chosen option (4) in Section

F3 would be asked further questions in Section F5 which

contained 6 options as to what changes should be made to the

Legislative Council in 1988, including the introduction of

was wrong, because even

direct elections.

This

those