<![CDATA[Purpose of the study: This study aimed to evaluate the pedagogical competence of Physical Education, Sports, and Health (PJOK) teachers in junior high schools in Hiliserangkai District, Nias Regency, Indonesia, and to examine competence levels across eight pedagogical dimensions prescribed by national teacher competency standards. Materials and methods: A quantitative cross-sectional survey design was employed involving all PJOK teachers (N = 5) from four public junior high schools through total sampling. Data were collected using a validated 85-item pedagogical competence questionnaire covering eight dimensions: understanding student characteristics, mastery of learning theories and instructional principles, curriculum development, educational learning activities, student potential development, communication with students, assessment and evaluation, and utilization of assessment results. Content validity was established through expert judgment (S-CVI/Ave = 0.96), and internal consistency reliability was confirmed using Cronbach’s alpha (α = 0.93). Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, competence index calculations, percentage distributions, and 95% confidence intervals with IBM SPSS Statistics 26. Results: The overall pedagogical competence index reached 89.7%, indicating a “Very Good” level of competence. The highest competence scores were observed in utilization of assessment results (94.8%), assessment and evaluation (94.0%), and communication with students (92.8%). The lowest scores were found in understanding student characteristics (82.8%) and curriculum development (83.2%), although both remained within the “Very Good” category. Six of the eight dimensions were consistently rated “Very Good” across all participants, while limited variation was observed in student characteristics and curriculum development. Conclusions: PJOK teachers in Hiliserangkai District demonstrated strong pedagogical competence despite teaching in a geographically remote setting. Nevertheless, targeted professional development focusing on curriculum adaptation and understanding student diversity is recommended to further enhance instructional quality and sustain educational improvement in rural schools.]]>
