How to Calculate F1 Score in Python (Including Example)

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When using classification models in machine learning, a common metric that we use to assess the quality of the model is the F1 Score.

This metric is calculated as:

F1 Score = 2 * (Precision * Recall) / (Precision + Recall)

where:

• Precision: Correct positive predictions relative to total positive predictions
• Recall: Correct positive predictions relative to total actual positives

For example, suppose we use a logistic regression model to predict whether or not 400 different college basketball players get drafted into the NBA.

The following confusion matrix summarizes the predictions made by the model:

Here is how to calculate the F1 score of the model:

Precision = True Positive / (True Positive + False Positive) = 120/ (120+70) = .63157

Recall = True Positive / (True Positive + False Negative) = 120 / (120+40) = .75

F1 Score = 2 * (.63157 * .75) / (.63157 + .75) = .6857

The following example shows how to calculate the F1 score for this exact model in Python.

Example: Calculating F1 Score in Python

The following code shows how to use the f1_score() function from the sklearn package in Python to calculate the F1 score for a given array of predicted values and actual values.

import numpy as np
from sklearn.metrics import f1_score

#define array of actual classes
actual = np.repeat([1, 0], repeats=[160, 240])

#define array of predicted classes
pred = np.repeat([1, 0, 1, 0], repeats=[120, 40, 70, 170])

#calculate F1 score
f1_score(actual, pred)

0.6857142857142857

We can see that the F1 score is 0.6857. This matches the value that we calculated earlier by hand.

Note: You can find the complete documentation for the f1_score() function here.

Notes on Using F1 Scores

If you use F1 score to compare several models, the model with the highest F1 score represents the model that is best able to classify observations into classes.

For example, if you fit another logistic regression model to the data and that model has an F1 score of 0.75, that model would be considered better since it has a higher F1 score.

Additional Resources

How to Perform Logistic Regression in Python
How to Create a Confusion Matrix in Python
How to Calculate Balanced Accuracy in Python
F1 Score vs. Accuracy: Which Should You Use?