According to MacCallum, Widaman, Zhang, and Hong (1999), cited in Henson and Roberts such rules of thumb can at times be misleading and often do not take into account many of the complex dynamics of a factor analysis. “They illustrated that when communalities are high (greater than .60) and each factor is defined by several items, sample sizes can actually be
relatively small”. p. 402 Others such as Guadagnoli and Velicer found that solutions with correlation coefficients >.80 require smaller sample sizes, while Sapnas and Zeller point out that even 50 cases may be adequate for factor analysis. As can be seen, the suggested sample size required to complete a factor analysis of a group of items that participants have responded to, varies greatly.