A quotation I found online:
"Researchers have also given guidelines for the minimum sample size
needed to conduct factor analysis. Some have suggested the ratio of
sample size to number of variables as a criteria: the recommendations
range from 2:1 through 20:1. Others have suggested a minimum sample
size of 100 to 200 observations (Guadagnoli and Velicer 1988)."
If the above is taken seriously at all, I would tend to go with the
minimum of 200, not 100.
You probably already realize this, but if the sample size is very
large (N = 1000?), then even a small, unimportant deviation of your
data from the hypothesized structure might be statistically
significant. You might want to pay attention to indices such as the
RMSEA.
Perhaps check John Loehlin's book on Latent Variable Models to see if
it gives practical guidance on this subject.
John
================================================================================
John Uebersax, PhD (805) 384-7688
Thousand Oaks, California (805) 383-1726 (fax)
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Existential Psych: http://members.aol.com/spiritualpsych
Agreement Stats: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/jsuebersax/agree.htm
Latent Structure: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/jsuebersax
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