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I'm using XGBoost for a binary classification problem. There is no negative label, only 1 and 0.

I tunned the hyperparameters using Bayesian optimization then tried to train the final model with the optimized hyperparameters.

Mdl_XGB = xgb.train(OptimizedParams, dtrain)

scores_train = Mdl_XGB.predict(dtrain)

scores_test = Mdl_XGB.predict(dtest)

My problem is that the predicted scores for both train and test sets include both negative values and numbers greater than one. The scores are between -0.23 and 1.13.

Shouldn't these scores present the probability of belonging to class 1 (positive class)?

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    $\begingroup$ Can you include the code for model creation and the outputs? As a side note: the word "scores" might be confusing here since it is usually used for performance scores like accuracy. It is more common to write pred_train = Mdl_XGB.predict(dtrain). $\endgroup$
    – Jonathan
    Commented Mar 4, 2020 at 16:49

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You have to set the option objective = binary:logistic to get probabilities between 0 and 1, otherwise you only get relative scores.

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    $\begingroup$ Honestly: no. You shouldn't train a model without looking at the learning options. $\endgroup$
    – Lucas Morin
    Commented Mar 4, 2020 at 16:55
  • $\begingroup$ I guess I gave you the answer anyway. $\endgroup$
    – Lucas Morin
    Commented Mar 4, 2020 at 16:55
  • $\begingroup$ Added to the dictionary of optimized parameters. It worked. Thanks! $\endgroup$
    – user3439050
    Commented Mar 4, 2020 at 17:19
  • $\begingroup$ I think it's worse than just "otherwise you only get relative scores". With the defaults, you are performing regression, with mse loss! $\endgroup$
    – Ben Reiniger ♦
    Commented Mar 4, 2020 at 19:49
  • $\begingroup$ You are right. But couldn’t you use the output of such regression as a « score » ? $\endgroup$
    – Lucas Morin
    Commented Mar 4, 2020 at 21:10

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