WASHINGTOn • A year into Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s term, private-sector economists say he isn’t performing quite as well as his two predecessors but is roughly on par with former central-bank chief Alan Greenspan.

Asked to grade the performance of each of the past four Fed chairs, economists surveyed this month by The Wall Street Journal assigned an average score of B-minus to Powell.

Previous chairs Janet Yellen (2014-18) and Ben Bernanke (2006-14) each received B-pluses. Greenspan (1987-2006) also earned a B-minus from the economists.

One subject in which multiple economists said Powell could use some tutoring was communication.

While Chair Powell had proven an apt communicator early in the semester, he seemed to lack focus and concentration in the approach to the finals,” said Gregory Daco, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics, who gave Powell a C. “In order to pass, a lot of attention will be needed on the subject of communication.”

Powell has occasionally confused investors in recent months. At a news conference in September, he said interest rates were “a long way” below the level policy makers expected them to eventually reach. After raising borrowing costs in December, he made clear Fed officials expected to continue lifting rates in 2019. Six weeks later, on Jan. 30, he changed course, saying the case for higher rates had weakened and suggesting that the Fed was done raising rates for now.

Some economists said they struggled to make sense of the shift on the basis of economic data, which didn’t deteriorate meaningfully between the Fed’s December and January meetings. A strong January employment report released days after Powell’s latest news conference appeared at odds with his assessment of diminishing inflation concerns and rising risks to the expansion.

“His inconsistent communications on future rate hikes gave traders and economist[s] whiplash and was an important reason for the stock-market selloff in the fourth quarter,” Bank of the West’s Scott Anderson said, attributing Powell’s mixed messaging to inexperience and assigning him a B grade. “He has a ways to go on the Fed chairman learning curve.”

At the same time, a significant number of economists have adjusted their forecasts to reflect Powell’s most recent guidance on interest rates.

Most of the survey respondents, 53 percent, said this month that they expected the Fed to stand pat on interest rates through midyear, while 47 percent saw the central bank raising rates during the period.

In last month’s survey, 73 percent of economists saw rates rising in the first six months of 2019 and fewer than one-fourth of economists, 24 percent, expected the central bank’s benchmark federal-funds rate to remain in its current range between 2.25 percent and 2.5 percent through the period. The remaining economists, 3 percent, expected the Fed to lower borrowing costs.

Most economists in this month’s survey still expected the Fed to raise rates by the end of this year: 48 percent forecast one quarter-percentage point rate increase, and 28 percent saw at least two such moves. Ten percent thought the Fed’s next move would be a rate cut, though they didn’t specify a time.

“Should the current pause in rates give the economy the breathing room to gather momentum, we can see a scenario where the Fed could raise rates one or two more times in the second half of 2019 before reaching the terminal rate,” KPMG’s Constance Hunter said.

The Journal surveyed 62 business, financial and academic economists Feb 1-5. Not every forecaster answered every question.