Examining guidance and counseling students interpersonal communication skill based on semester level

Interpersonal communication has been widely studied and proven to be an important skill possessed by school counselor. Interpersonal communication skills are activities that transfer certain information appropriately by the context of the communication. The purpose of this study was to determine the differences in interpersonal communication skills of students majoring in guidance and counseling. The subjects of this study were students of the guidance and counseling department at Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta, who enrolled in the year 2017, 2018 and 2019. The research method used was quantitative research methods. Data analysis was performed using One-way Anova.The results of this study show that there is no difference in the interpersonal communication skills based on semester level.


INTRODUCTION
counseling students at Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta based on their semester levels. The study was conducted in January 2020. The research instrument was interpersonal communication skills inventory that was adapted from the interpersonal communication inventory, that had been proved to be valid. The reliable score was 85,93 to 19,05 and N298 (Bienvenu, 1971;Chartier, 1974). The translation was done by an English Teacher from the English Program at the Faculty of Teacher Training and Education.
The subjects of this research consisted of three groups classified based on the year the students admitted at guidance and counseling Major of Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta. The classified groups were class of 2017, class of 2018, and class of 2019. The statistic data analysis was done by studying the means difference of interpersonal communication skills to class of 2017, 2018, and 2019, using statistic data analysis named One-Way Anova. The normality data test was done to fulfil the requirement before doing one-way anova analysis. Table 1 is the result of students' interpersonal communication skills obtained from the students' interpersonal communication skills inventory. Next, the students' average scores in each class would be counted to know which class gained the best interpersonal communication skills score. The different score in each class would prove that the former students had better interpersonal communication skills than those of the later students.

RESULT AND DISCUSSION
The data obtained in this study consisted of normality data, the average score of interpersonal communication skills per generation, and the difference score of interpersonal communication skills per generation. One of the requirements to do the analysis using One-Way Anova technique is that the data obtained must spread evenly. At Figure 1 and Table 2 contain sig. Shapiro-Wilk > 0,05, which means that the data spread had already distributed normally.  From the normality test, it was found that the value of sig Shapiro-Wilk of class 2017 was 0.238, 2018 was 0,676, and 2019 was 0,066. The sig value >0.05 showed that the data was distributed normally. Besides, the normality test shown that the sig. homogenic data was 0,063. It means that the data obtained was equal since the score gained was > 0.05. So that the requirement to do the analysis using one-way Anova was fulfilled.
From the one-way Anova test, it was found that the average score of guidance and counseling students' interpersonal communication skills in each class. Table 3 contains the average score of guidance and counseling students' interpersonal communication skills. The average score of interpersonal communication skills for the class of 2017 was 79.27, the class of 2018 was 76.02 and the class of 2019 was 76.98. These averages were used as guidelines to analyze differences in the level of interpersonal communication skills of students. Next, the results of the one-way ANOVA analysis are presented in Table 4. From the one-way ANOVA statistical analysis it was known that the sig value. was 0.525 means that the value was more than 0.05, so there was no difference in interpersonal communication skills of guidance and counseling students in 2017, 2018 and 2019. The post-hoc test results in Table 5. Post-hoc tests were used to determine differences in interpersonal communication skills in each generation.  The research hypothesis was that students who had studied longer in the guidance and counseling major had better interpersonal communication skills than newer students. This hypothesis was based on the thought that guidance and counseling students as school counselor candidates and counselors must have good interpersonal communication skills (Nurrahmi, 2015;Radjah, 2016;Riswanto et al., 2016). Interpersonal communication skills should be developed through lecture activities undertaken by students, so the longer students learnt the more interpersonal communication skills developed.
The absence of significant differences between 2017, 2018 and 2019 students showed that the length of study and learning activities of the under graduate guidance and counseling students of Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta did not affect the development of students' interpersonal communication skills. If it referred to the Vision of the Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta Guidance and Counseling Study Program this did not contradict because in its vision this department reveal "... producing superior guidance and counseling teacher candidates based on piety, independence, scholarship, and nationalism". In its mission, no goals were formulated to develop students' interpersonal communication skills, although one of the elaborations of the competencies of graduates was "Able to display consultation, collaboration, mediation, advocacy and conflict resolution skills in the implementation of guidance and counseling services" (Program Studi Bimbingan dan Konseling, Fakultas Ilmu Pendidikan, 2015).
Although within the scope of the study program there is no explicit vision or mission to produce graduates who have interpersonal communication skills, but if it is examined on the task of school counselor in schools, the interpersonal skills of prospective school counselor candidates are very important to be developed. American School Counselor Association (2003,2012) states that one of the counselors' competencies is to be able to interact and collaborate with families, teachers, school staffs and administrators. In such interactions and collaborations, certainly requires good interpersonal communication skills. Therefore, interpersonal communication skills are needed by school counselors who are teachers, and also therapists (Nurrahmi, 2015;Radjah, 2016;Riswanto et al., 2016).
There was no difference in students' interpersonal communication skills per class, allegedly because the quality of students admission in class was not the same even though based on the results of statistical analysis the data had been proven to be homogeneous. What needed to be studied more deeply was the procedure for student admission from 2017 to 2019, whether there were differences or not. In addition, the characteristics of new students majoring in guidance and counseling from year to year tend to be the same, Most of them came from the same region like Special Region of Yogyakarta, Central Java and a few from West Java. Another characteristic of guidance and counseling majoring input was the students came from families with the same socio economic level. Then it could be understood that guidance and counseling students had interpersonal communication skills that were not different, where the culture and socioeconomic conditions of a family affected one's social skills, including interpersonal communication skills (Atika & Rasyid, 2018;Machmud, 2019;Tanriady et al., 2013).
Another factor that caused no difference in the level of interpersonal communication skills of guidance and counseling students was that they were at the same stage of development, namely the stage of late adolescent development. Although in this study the subjects consisted of 3 different generations but they were in the age range at the teenage stage which was 17-19 years (Havighurst, 1948). The three generations had the same characteristics, which were in the period of looking for identity. In the social aspect of adolescent characteristics, peer relationships were important to them. This characteristic was thought to cause students having no criteria to show good interpersonal communication skills, that are having self-concept, having good listening skills, being able to express feelings, controlling emotions and acting the way they are (Batubara, 2016;Havighurst, 1948). The characteristic of adolescents called puberty was thought to prohibit the students from achieving criteria as good interpersonal communicators.
Besides there was no significant difference in interpersonal communication skills between guidance and counseling students in 2017, 2018 and 2019, it was also known that the average score obtained by students was in the "average" category, which was indicated by a score of 76-79. This showed that the assumptions about guidance and counseling majoring students were prepared to have good interpersonal communication skills that were refuted. This means that interpersonal communication skills of guidance and counseling students were not yet in the "good" category. This was contrary to one of the legal foundations of the Guidance and Counseling teacher profession in schools, the Ministry of Education no. 27 of 2008. In the Permendiknas, explained the academic qualification standards and counselor competencies which at least mention four competencies that require counselors to be able to communicate effectively at part 7. 4, 8.2, 10.1 and 15.3 (Menteri Pendidikan Nasional Republik Indonesia, 2008). According to law, interpersonal communication skills are It was found in the study that there were no significant differences in interpersonal communication skills of the Guidance and Counseling major students. The essence of this research was to provide an overview of students 'interpersonal communication skills that could be used to make decisions about conducting lectures that support the development of students' interpersonal communication skills. Suggestions for further researcher, in order to obtain more comprehensive data about the description of interpersonal communication skills of students majoring in guidance and counseling, a research with broader subject could absolutely be done. For educators of guidance and counseling teacher candidates and counselors the result of this study can be used as discussion material for the development of guidance and counseling study programs in Indonesia.