Jan 08, 2014 01:55 PM EST By Jaleesa Baulkman, UniversityHerald Reporter

A new study argues that research on gay and bi-sexual youth may be inaccurate because of "jokesters" who claim to be gay when they aren't, Campus Reform reported.

Ritch Savin-Williams, a Cornell University developmental psychologist, analyzed the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, a survey that followed a nationally representative group of tens of thousands of teens into adulthood, and found that many students who initially claimed to be gay later identified as straight because they were either joking or confused by the questions, Campus Reform reported.

Savin-Williams found that more than 70 percent of those who claimed to have romantic feelings for someone of the same sex later identified as straight. He said the false claims resulted in faulty data and may undermine findings from studies on the topic.

"It's not that we saw something that no one else had seen," Savin-Williams told the Los Angeles Times. "But they kept using the data; people should have said, 'Hold on here, who are these kids?'"  

He also said that although some teens have been confused about the nature of the questions, research claims that "others were jokesters who answered incorrectly for fun," Campus Reform reported.

University of Arizona sociologist Stephen Russell told the Los Angeles Times that "inconsistent" teens are not necessarily jokesters or confused.

He said that in light of "enduring stigma against gays, lesbians and bisexuals in many parts of the country," it makes sense for young people who have been romantically attracted to the same sex to identify themselves as being straight.  

"Why is it unlikely they might be questioning who they are - and grow up to identify as straight?" Russell asked.

Other experts argues that the existence of inconsistent teens don't undermine findings from earlier studies.

Ilan Meyer, a scholar at UCLA's Williams Institute, told the Los Angeles Times that the notion that gay and bisexual teens are at a greater risk of suffering from physical and mental health are consistent with many other studies based on different sources of data.

He said that although Savin-Williams' study highlights "interesting issues," "we don't know what the results would look like if these inconsistent youth were not included."

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