## sklearn.accuracy_score(y_test, y_predict) vs np.mean(y_predict == y_test)

2

What is the difference between these two methods for finding model accuracy?

I have used both methods in python3 and i normally get identical results. However in few cases i get completely different results, so I am trying to figure out the possible reason for this.

2

Both of these methods act differently. You will only get the same results in very few cases or if you are testing only one row at a time.

• np.mean(y_test==y_pred) first checks if all the values in y_test is equal to corresponding values in y_pred which either results in 0 or 1. And then takes the mean of it (which is still 0 or 1).

• accuracy_score(y_test, y_pred) counts all the indexes where an element of y_test equals to an element of y_pred and then divide it with the total number of elements in the list.

For example-

  import numpy as np
from sklearn.metrics import accuracy_score
y_test = [2,2,3]
y_pred = [2,2,1]
print(accuracy_score( y_test, y_pred))
print(np.mean(y_test==y_pred))


This code returns -

  0.6666666666666666
0.0


You will get the same result from both the method if you have only one sample/element to test. You can find more details here on accuracy_score and np.mean.

Also, accuracy_score is only for classification data. As mentioned in the first line here.

Great, thank you for the explanation! – codiearcher – 2019-09-10T11:58:28.450

So am I correct in assuming that to gauge the accuracy of my RandomForest CLassifier I should use accuracy_score() rather than np.mean? – codiearcher – 2019-09-10T12:02:21.207

@codiearcher Yes but I would suggest you to also look at confusion_matrix to evaluate the overall results of your model rather than just accuracy.

– Keshav Garg – 2019-09-10T12:38:43.503

Thank you. Yes I am already using a confusion matrix, as well as checking prec, recall and F1. – codiearcher – 2019-09-10T12:42:35.880

@codiearcher Glad to help. – Keshav Garg – 2019-09-10T19:07:46.537

You are assuming that y_test and y_pred are lists. If they are dataframe columns, then the two methods are identica. – Brady Gilg – 2019-09-15T18:11:36.313