Case study analysis and findings

¶ … Hong Kong to China: Supported by Its Residents, focuses on the territory of Hong Kong. It discusses how in July of 1997 Hong Kong returned to administration under China, though it retains its own political, economic and judicial systems. The primary focus of the article is discussing the attitudes and impacts this move has on the people living in Hong Kong. The results suggested that a majority of people living in Hong Kong would have supported other options including becoming an independent nation if they had been given a chance.

Was the research firm's questionnaire adequate to address the issue? Why or Why not?

The questionnaire does not fully address the issue it intends to address. The purpose of the questionnaire was to determine how the people of Hong Kong felt about the shift in power. The questionnaire does supply an adequate number of questions to assess whether or not people might consider some options other than becoming a Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China. It does not however, allow respondents to answer more open ended questions. Instead the questions are very directed, devised by the researchers. Thus the respondents are somewhat limited in their approach. There is no evidence to suggest that the questions were developed based on any scientific principle or solid research statistics. The questionnaire would have been of more use if respondents were given more options. It would also have benefited from an approach that allowed free response answers.

What changes, if any, would you have made to obtain the information?

If I had developed the questionnaire, I would have offered respondents more open ended questions, so that they might offer ideas about how they would like to see their countries political structure develop in the upcoming years. For example, I might have included the option of having respondents simply answer the question "How do you feel about the change" or "How has this change impacted you." This might have provided additional insight into people's true opinions about the recent change. The questionnaire did ask respondents if they would prefer that Hong Kong simply remain an administrative region. It did offer some other options including becoming an independent nation. It did not however ask respondents to explain their answer. A more comprehensive approach would have been to allow respondents to offer an answer followed by their reasoning for selecting the answer they did.

Conclusions

This case study caused me to think a great deal about surveys and survey questions. I did enjoy learning about the recent changes that have occurred with regard to the administration and governance of Hong Kong.