A Gentle Introduction to the Fbeta-Measure for Machine Learning
Fbeta-measure is a configurable single-score metric for evaluating a binary classification model based on the predictions made for the positive class.
The Fbeta-measure is calculated using precision and recall.
Precision is a metric that calculates the percentage of correct predictions for the positive class. Recall calculates the percentage of correct predictions for the positive class out of all positive predictions that could be made. Maximizing precision will minimize the false-positive errors, whereas maximizing recall will minimize the false-negative errors.
The F-measure is calculated as the harmonic mean of precision and recall, giving each the same weighting. It allows a model to be evaluated taking both the precision and recall into account using a single score, which is helpful when describing the performance of the model and in comparing models.
The Fbeta-measure is a generalization of the F-measure that adds a configuration parameter called beta. A default beta value is 1.0, which is the same as the F-measure. A smaller beta value, such as 0.5, gives more weight to precision and less to recall, whereas a larger beta value, such as 2.0, gives less weight to precision and more weight to recall in the calculation of the score.