Effect of Science Training on Competency with Soft Skills and Certification as Moderation variables

Human resource training activities at UPT BLK Singosari are nonformal education programs organized by the government to provide soft skills and certification for trainees. The training, and soft skills and certifications should increase the trainee’s competency. Therefore, this study will examine the effect of training on competence moderated by soft skills and certification. This is a survey research using explanatory research. This research was conducted at UPT BLK Singosari. This study used a sample of 60 respondents. However, there were 10 questionnaires whose filling was incomplete so that the processed samples were 50 questionnaires. Data was collected using a questionnaire and filled in by respondents. From the data obtained, a moderation analysis is done to examine the effect each variable. This research has three findings. First, training has positive and significant effect on competence. Second, soft skills strengthen the effect of training on competence. Third, certification strengthens the effect of training on competence.


INTRODUCTION
The Central Java Statistics Agency shows that open unemployment is still quite large in East Java. However, the unemployment in East Java shows a downward trend. The decrease in unemployment is inseparable from government's efforts to deal with unemployment seriously. The government through related institutions continues to take part to provide services to community to improve unemployment competencies. UPT BLK Singosari is an institution established by government. The training became a keyword for UPT BLK Singosari to improve the soft skills and competencies. The training will provide opportunities for trainees to develop new competencies and abilities at work to help trainees to get decent employment or starting an independent business.
Worker empowerment by UPT BLK Singosari becomes a solution to improve human resource competencies, especially for people who only have junior or high school education. These graduates usually have low ability and are unable to continue to higher education. UPT BLK Singosari can become one tool to develop human resources in a hope to transfer soft skills and competency knowledge based on the prepared curriculum. Job training is organized and directed to equip, improve and develop work skills or expertise in order to improve the ability, productivity and welfare of workforce. Law No. 13 year 2003 emphasizes the need for job training to provide, obtain, improve, and develop work competency, productivity, discipline, attitude and work ethic at certain skill levels and expertise in accordance with level and qualifications of position or occupation. In turn training at UPT BLK Singosari can improve the competitiveness of workers in labor market.
The above description shows a gap that no one has examined the importance of training conducted by UPT BLK Singosari to improve competence. The novelty of this research is the first research to examine the effect of training on competencies moderated by soft skills and certification at UPT BLK Singosari. There are two elements that determine the soft skills and certification received by participants. Soft skills relate to trainees' thinking ability in solving problems. Meanwhile certification is proof that trainees have graduated from training at UPT BLK Singosari. In turn soft skills and certification are expected to improve competence. Therefore, this study will examine the effect of training on competence moderated by soft skills and certification. Mangkunegara (2013) stated that training is a term related to planning efforts to achieve mastery of skills, and attitudes of organization members. Training is a short-term educational process to uses systematic and organized procedures for teaches personnel to get knowledge and skills in limited goals. Dessler (2015) explained that training plays an important role in management process. Training is an integrated process used by employers to ensure that employees can be used to achieve organizational goals. Training is an activity related to economic activities, to help employees understand a practical knowledge and its application, and to improve the skills and attitudes needed by organization to achieve the goals (Heidjrachman and Suad, 2011).

Soft Skills
The definition of soft skills is a sociological term relating to a person Emotional Quotient, cluster of personality traits, social graces, communication, language, personal habits, friendliness, and optimism that characterizes relationships with other people. Soft skills complement the hard skills (part of a person's IQ), which are the occupational requirements of a job and many other activities. Soft skills is a social or sociological term to indicate a person's level of EQ, which consists of personality traits, social acceptance, communication, language, habits, friendliness, and optimism that characterize relationships with others. Soft skills are a complement the hard skills (IQ) as a requirement of a job. Soft skills are life skills, both with oneself, in groups or in society and with Creator. Broadly speaking, soft skills are a combination of intrapersonal abilities and interpersonal abilities (Purnami, 2013).

Certification
Certification it means an official document used to prove a true fact. It also becomes official documents as evidence has followed the learning activities or graduation exams (Echol and Shadili, 2016). This understanding shows that someone who has a certificate, means he already has a document as proof that he has passed in a learning activity and is entitled to obtain certification as proof that person concerned is capable to do certain tasks related to certificate he has. Thus, he has the right to get something as a consequence of his certificate. Certification in education and training is one of social institutions. As a social institution, education is a system that is built from several components. Each component has its own function that inseparable from other components as a whole. Sociologists say that certification in education and education training is a social event, a stage of social processes that has been used since before humans recognized the school formally (Roucek, 2014).

Competence
Supiyanto (2015) defined competency as a behavioral dimension of expertise or excellence of a leader or staff who have good skills, knowledge, and behavior. McClelland in Rybnicek (2017) stated that competence was a fundamental characteristic possessed by someone who has a direct effect or can predict the excellent performance. Luthan and Leung (2010) described competency as an underlying characteristic of a person related to effectiveness of individual performance on job or individual characteristics that have a causal basis or as a causal criteria, effective or very good or superior performance in workplace or in certain situations. Widyasari (2003) described competence as a set of abilities as the subject to criteria based on work requirements using knowledge, skills and attitudes which include analytical skills and synthesis systems in accordance with technological demands.

Theoretical Framework and Hypothesis
Training is one of efforts to improve the competency of trainees (Esposito and Freda, 2015). However, training is not the only variable to affect the competency of trainees. Lie and Darmasetiawan (2017) found that soft skills have an effect on competence. In addition, Abubakar (2015) also found that certification also affects competence. Based on these results it can be seen that effect of training on competence is also affected by other variables, including soft skills and certification. Luthan & Leung (2010) explains that competence is affected by many variables, including training and soft skills. Therefore, conceptual framework of this study is presented in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Conceptual Framework
Based on above conceptual framework, the study hypotheses can be stated below.

H1.
Training directly affect on competence of trainees at UPT BLK Singosari-Malang.

H2.
Soft skills moderate the effect of training on competency of trainees at UPT BLK Singosari-Malang.

H3.
Certification moderates the effect of training on competency of trainees at UPT BLK Singosari-Malang.

METHODOLOGY
This research was conducted at UPT BLK Singosari, East Java, from June 2019 to September 2019. This is an explanatory research type. Singarimbun & Efendi (2009) stated that explanatory research was a type of research to explore the relationship between research variables and tests of hypotheses. This research is also called a hypothesis testing research. This study uses the trainees at UPT BLK Singosari as a population. The trainees have attended the training at UPT BLK Singosari. The use of trainees as a population because it allows researchers to communicate smoothly with respondents. This is done to increase the response rate. The samples are 50 people. Samples were selected using random sampling techniques. This means that every trainee has the same opportunity to become a sample. Research data were collected using a questionnaire measured by Likert scale. The scale used consists of five points, starting from 1 meaning strongly disagree, 2 means agree, 3 means neutral, 4 means agree and 5 means totally agree. The data obtained were then analyzed by Multiple Regression analysis method and Moderation Regression Analysis using SPSS (Statistical Product and Service Solutions) version 23 for Windows (Sugiyono, 2012).

Respondents Characteristics
The majority of respondents are male of 36 people or 72% compared to women who are 14 people or 28%, majority of respondents aged between 21-30 with 30 people (60%), then followed by> 50 up to 18 people (36%). The education level of respondents was high

Certification
Soft skills Competency Training school and bachelor education, each totalling 25 people or 50%, followed by bachelor totalling 22 people or 44%.

Hypothesis test
The results of testing using regression analysis are presented in table 1. Hypothesis 1 testing was conducted to determine the direct effect of Training (X) on Competence (Y). Beta coefficient is 0.278b and significance is 0.023 <0.05. These results indicate that hypothesis 1 is accepted. It means the training directly affects competence. Hypothesis 2 and 3 testing is done to determine the effect of Training (X1) on Competency of Trainees (Y) moderated by Soft Skill (Z1) and Certification (Z2). The recapitulation of results of analysis is presented in Table 2.  Table 1, the description can be shown below: Variable Z1 strengthens the relationship between variable X and variable Y. This is indicated by a total effect value of 0.348 which is greater than the value of partial effect of X on Y of 0.278. Therefore, hypothesis 2 is accepted. Variable Z2 strengthens the relationship between variable X and variable Y. This is indicated by total effect value of 0.386 which is greater than the value of partial effect of X on Y of 0.278. Therefore, hypothesis 3 is accepted.

Direct Effect of Training on Competence
Above shows that training has a direct and significant effect on competence of UPT BLK Singosari Malang trainees. The implementation of training for trainees at UPT BLK Singosari Malang can increase the competency of trainees. The implementation of training can make the UPT BLK Singosari Malang trainees have better competencies. The training at UPT BLK Singosari Malang can contribute better to prepare prospective workers by providing soft skills and certification. The This study results are consistent with research Esposito and Freda (2015) who found that training can increase the competency of trainees. Danescu (2015) also found that training showed a significant relationship with competence. However, initial training system for career teaching must be revised, especially with regard to its content. Purnomo et al. (2016) also found that education and training had a positive and significant effect on competencies of Bali tour guides.

The effect of training on competence is moderated by soft skills
The training has a direct and significant effect on competence of trainees at UPT BLK Singosari Malang. The soft skills can strengthen the effect of training on competence. This means that provision of soft skill material for trainees at UPT BLK Singosari Malang will affect to increase the effect of training on competency of trainees. This study results are consistent with research conducted by Aswitami & Pramita (2014) who found that training can improve the competency of trainees if based on student's soft skills expertise in communication, leadership and ethics aspects. This statement is supported by Lie and Darmasetiawan (2017) who state that soft skills have a significant effect on job readiness competencies in face of MEA. There is a strong relationship between soft skills and student work readiness competencies in face of MEA.

Effect of Training on Competence moderated by Certification
The training has a direct and significant effect on competence of trainees at UPT BLK Singosari Malang. The certification can strengthen the effect of Training on Competence. This means that certification award for trainees at UPT BLK Singosari Malang will affect to increase the effect of training on competency of trainees. The results of this study are consistent with research conducted by Kodri et al. (2018) who found that training can improve the competency of trainees supported by provision of certification. This statement was supported by Abubakar (2015) who stated that certification found little effect on teacher competence. Many teachers feel that their competencies are not too different before and after getting certified.

CONCLUSION
This research is an attempt to prove empirically the theory which states that training can improve competence. Provision of appropriate soft skill material and certification can strengthen the effect of training. The analysis results for trainees at UPT BLK Singosari trainees show following conclusions.
First, training directly has a significant effect on competence. This means that better training will increase the competency of trainees. Second, soft skills strengthen the effect of training of trainee's competence. This means that provision of soft skills in accordance with trainees need will enhance the competency of trainees. Third, Certification strengthens the effect of Training on training participant's Competency. This means that provision of certification after the training will increase the confidence of trainees for the better competency. The above conclusions indicate several opportunities to increase the competency of trainees. From conclusions above, following suggestions can be made. First, UPT BLK Singosari Malang should increase the competency of trainees by giving the training consistent with trainees needs. Therefore, training should be carried out based on soft skills of trainees to increase the competency of trainees.
Second, UPT BLK Singosari Malang immediately gave a certificate after the students finished training. It became evidence that trainees had obtained the soft skills needed for work. This will certainly increase the trainee's chances to be accepted in labor market.
Third, future researchers should conduct further research regarding the generalization of theory by adding three things. First, number should be increased by including the city of Malang or East Java. Secondly, this study only uses the Training variable as an independent variable. There are many other variables that affect the competency of trainees such as work experience, motivation and others. Therefore, these variables can be added to future research. Third, analysis tools used are still regression based developed into moderation analysis, future research can use more accurate analysis tools such as GSCA or PLS.