# sklearn.metrics.accuracy_score vs. LogisticRegression().score?

I'm currently testing some models on a simple binary classification task, however, I've found a strange discrepancy between two accuracy score metrics from SK Learn: sk_learn.metrics.accuracy_score and the .score() method on the LogisticRegression class.

They are both supposed to be measuring "accuracy", but after juxtaposing the two, I can't find any obvious differences between them. Can someone help me explain why I'm getting different results for the two methods? And maybe provide a recommendation on which to use? Below is the function I called to run 100 trials of the model with randomized samples from my data set.

I'm also sharing screen shots of the resulting distributions of scores.

def lr_runner(data, ratio, kpi, dropper, d_var, sensitivity=.01):
scores =[]
accs =[]
AUCs = []
tprs = []
mean_fpr = np.linspace(0, 1, 100)
for i in tqdm_notebook(range(100)):
train, test = randomizer(data, .66, kpi, sensitivity=sensitivity)
train = pd.get_dummies(train, columns=['categorical_variable1', 'categorical_variable2'])
test = pd.get_dummies(test, columns=['categorical_variable1', 'categorical_variable2'])
X_train = train.drop(dropper, axis=1)
X_test = test.drop(dropper, axis=1)
y_train = train[d_var]
y_test = test[d_var]
results = LogisticRegression().fit(X_train, y_train)
scores.append(results.score(X_train, y_train))
accs.append(accuracy_score(y_test, results.predict(X_test)))
probas_ = results.predict_proba(X_test)
fpr, tpr, thresholds = roc_curve(y_test, probas_[:, 1])
tprs.append(interp(mean_fpr, fpr, tpr))
tprs[-1][0] = 0.0
roc_auc = auc(fpr, tpr)
AUCs.append(roc_auc)
print("mean score: {}\nmean acc: {}\nmean AUC: {}".format(np.mean(scores),
np.mean(accs),
np.mean(AUCs)))
fig, subplots = plt.subplots(1,3, figsize=(12, 4))
sns.distplot(scores, kde=False, ax=subplots[0])
subplots[0].set_title("Scores")
sns.distplot(accs, kde=False, ax=subplots[1])
subplots[1].set_title("accuracies")
sns.distplot(AUCs, kde=False, ax=subplots[2])
subplots[2].set_title("AUC's")
plt.show()
fig.show()
return scores, accs, AUCs, results


I wish I could just take this back...amazing what happens when you put your confusion down in writing (and read the source code).

One is testing accuracy, the other is training accuracy.

To clarify:

results.score(X_train, y_train) is the training accuracy, while

accuracy_score(y_test, results.predict(X_test)) is the testing accuracy.

The way I found out that they do the same thing is by inspecting the SK Learn source code. Turns out that the .score() method in the LogisticRegression class directly calls the sklearn.metrics.accuracy_score method... I ran a test to double check and it's confirmed:

Training with LR.score:

model.score(X_train, y_train)
0.72053675612602097


Testing with LR.score:

model.score(X_test, y_test)
0.79582673005810878


Testing with accuracy_score:

accuracy_score(y_test, model.predict(X_test))
0.79582673005810878

• Could you clarify which function is measuring training accuracy and which is measuring testing accuracy? – Sycorax says Reinstate Monica Jul 5 '18 at 23:32
• just clarified further in the most recent edit. Thanks! – Victor Vulovic Jul 6 '18 at 21:09