I plan to develop a semi-structured assessment tool and further validate it on a relatively small sample of below 50 (clinical sample). I have been asked by the research committee to consider factor analysis.
So in this context, I wanted to know if anyone has used regularized factor analysis for tool validation which is recommended for small sample sizes?
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00507/full#:~:text=It%20is%20well%20known%20that,comparative%20psychology%20and%20behavior%20genetics.
I am in the process of learning myself. I recommend following lecture series on Psychometrics by Dr. Vishal Gupta, Professor IIMA, for you to learn.
YouTube playlist: shorturl.at/ghoFK
Regards
Nagesh Rajopadhye
The sample size is relatively quite small but if the size is above 100 then you can try. There had been studies who have opted for exploratory factor analysis on such smaller sample. But you got to check the KMO and Bartlett's Test of Sphericity to see the adequacy of your data. Try reading the following research papers who support smaller samples for EFA.
De Winter, J.C.F., Dodou, D., & Wieringa, P.A. (2009). Exploratory factor analysis with small sample sizes. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 44, 147–181.
Wirth, R. J., & Edwards, M. C. (2007). Item factor analysis: current approaches and future directions. Psychological Methods, 12, 58-79.
Barrett, P. (2007). Structural equation modelling: Adjudging model fit. Personality and Individual Differences, 42, 815-824.
Shikha Ahuja
Dear Shikha Ahuja ,
I'm not sure what this specific kind of EFA is or how it affects the sample size adequacy issue. Essentially, EFA can work with smaller sample sizes, but you need stronger factors to emerge from the analysis. Md Quadir Ali has mentioned two of the three recommended tests. The third one concerns the size of the determinant of the correlation matrix. Please refer to my study guide on EFA (Technical Report Advice on Exploratory Factor Analysis
) for detailed information.- Badges
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