Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning

F1-Score

Definition

The F1-score is a metric used in classification that combines precision and recall into a single score. It is the harmonic mean of precision and recall.

Why It Matters

The F1-score provides a way to find a balance between precision and recall, especially when you are dealing with an imbalanced dataset where one class is much more frequent than the other.

Contextual Example

If a model has high precision but low recall, or vice versa, the F1-score will be low. A high F1-score indicates that the model has both good precision and good recall.

Common Misunderstandings

  • F1-Score = 2 * (Precision * Recall) / (Precision + Recall).
  • It is a more robust metric than accuracy for imbalanced classification problems.

Related Terms

Last Updated: December 17, 2025