CHARACTER EDUCATION IN ISLAMIC EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS: A Study on the Impact of Lecturer Competence at IAIN Lhokseumawe

This study aims to determine the effect of lecturer competence on the character of students at IAIN Lhokseumawe. The research method used is quantitative with a path analysis model. The research subjects were students of IAIN Lhokseumawe. With a total sample of 351 people. Sampling was done using the proportional random sampling technique. Based on the research findings, professional competence has the strongest and most significant impact on character development followed by pedagogical, social, and personality competencies. This finding implies that higher education institutions need to develop lecturers’ competencies, especially professional competencies to realize better character education among universities. Abstrak. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui pengaruh kompetensi Dosen terhadap karakter mahasiswa IAIN Lhokseumawe. Metode penelitian yang digunakan adalah kuantitatif dengan model analisis jalur. Subjek penelitian adalah mahasiswa IAIN Lhokseumawe dengan jumlah sampel sebanyak 351 orang. Pengambilan sampel dilakukan dengan menggunakan teknik proporstional random sampling. Temuan penelitian menunjukkan bahwa kompetensi profesional memiliki dampak paling kuat dan signifikan terhadap pengembangan karakter diikuti oleh kompetensi paedagogik, sosial dan kepribadian. Temuan ini berimplikasi bahwa lembaga pendidikan tinggi perlu mengembangkan kompetensi dosen terutama kompetensi profesional guna mewujudkan pendidikan karakter yang lebih baik di kalangan perguruan tinggi.


Introduction
The implementation of character education in educational institutions is not a new policy, character issues have long been a common concern. In fact, several studies have compared character education to exist since education existed. Historically, education has two main goals: to help people be smart and to help them become good (character). 1 In Indonesia recently, or to be precise, since 2010 character education in schools has been reaffirmed and has even become a National Movement. Educational unit institutions ranging from basic education to higher education are strategic means for shaping the character of the nation.
Ryan and Bohlin said that character education is about developing virtues, habits and good character that can lead students to responsible and mature maturity 2 . Webber describes a person's character as a collection of one's traits, and this can be defined as a relatively stable disposition to think, feel, and behave in a certain way in certain situations. 3 McElmeel states the character values that students must have, are: cheerfulness, joy, citizenship, kindness, cleanliness, loyalty, compassion, patience, cooperation, persistence, courage, punctuality, politeness, respect, creativity, respect for the environment, reliable, responsibility, school pride, justice, self-control, generosity, sportsmanship, helping, tolerance, honesty 4 . The number of character concepts and character education occurs because of the difficulty in defining them. The difficulty in trying to define character education is because character education is reflected more "ethically" than learned empirically. 5 However, in essence character building and education are the goals that cannot be separated from one another. Therefore, educational institutions are important to make character a top priority.
Character problems in higher education have not been widely discussed in Indonesia. Character education is currently more focused on primary and secondary education. In fact, the implementation of character education in higher education institutions is equally important. Because primary and secondary education do not guarantee that students  Moral and Character Education, ed. Larry Nucci, Darcia Narvaez, and Tobias Krettenauer, 2nd ed. (New York: Routledge, 2014). 53 have good character and are ready to pursue higher education. 6 The formation of character in students is closely related to the students' achievement. In other words, the development of character values has an important role in the development of moral reasoning, behavior and enhances their academic achievement and learning outcomes in higher education. 7 These character problems affect the social, economy, politics and culture of a nation. At the level of national and regional leadership, problems such as corruption, collusion and nepotism have always been the main topics in almost every mass media in Indonesia. There are also many problems at the lower level, such as cheating, littering, running red lights, grabbing queues, and so on. As Ching-Ng's findings in his study, he found that the economic collapse is not only financial, but also represents moral and ethical failure. Thus, for a sustainable future, higher education must do more to promote and support the development of ethical values in students. 8 In universities, especially among students, character issues must also be the main focus in the implementation of education. Problems such as plagiarism and dropout are still quite common. Reports found by Anggraini and Rawati who interviewed students, answered that all students had committed plagiarism in different forms, such as; acknowledging other people's work, copying friends' work and most often copying from the internet. 9 For dropout cases in 2017, out of a total of 6,924,511 students enrolled, 195,176 students were dropped out. 10 Character problems that occur at IAIN Lhokseumawe are based on observations done, namely discipline in attendance and timeliness in doing assignments were still not good, doing assignments only by copying and pasting from the internet without mentioning the source and doing analysis, less active in the learning process, less independent in learning and the level of creativity is still low. This is of course very apprehensive that higher education should be able to make someone has the ability to think critically, structured, and other skills needed in the world of work, especially the surrounding community.
According to Smagorinsky and Taxel, the solution to social problems is the application of character education at all levels and levels of education 11 including higher education. The important question is how can character development at the higher education level be implemented? Lecturers as directly related have a close relationship with the process of implementing character education both at the attitude level in learning and outside learning.
Lecturer is one of the essential components in the education system in higher education. The roles, duties and responsibilities of lecturers are very important in realizing education that puts character as the main goal. The ability of lecturers in a comprehensive manner will have an impact on improving student character and academic achievement. The relationship that exists between lecturers and students, providing appropriate advice and guidance can increase student self-esteem and encourage students to be actively involved in the learning process. 12 To be able to realize character education that is able to have an impact on improving student academic achievement, it takes lecturers who have good competencies. Lecturers who have the relevant competencies show wise behavior at work. This of course will have an impact on student competence and critical behavior. 13 Okumu said that educators can inspire their students to develop their character values. 14 Most CIT studies focus primarily on the categories that emerge after analysis of their content and characteristics (Meuter et al., 2000). As already mentioned, this study explores which dimensions of lecturer behavior quality are referred to in incidents. Based on the 11  incident summary analysis, nine attributes were classified, which are presented by definition in Table 1.
Feng Su and Wood conducted an analysis of their research to see the lecturer from the student's point of view. They find that lecturers must have various competencies, including: having knowledge of the subject, willing to help and use inspiring teaching methods, being humorous and able to provide feedback. 15 Meanwhile, in the context of Indonesia itself, Lecturer competence is one of the main focuses of the government. In Government Ordinance Number 37 of 2009 concerning Lecturers, it is stated that lecturers are professional educators and scientists with the main task of transforming, developing, and disseminating science, technology and arts through education, research and community service.
To be able to become professional educators, in the Teacher and Lecturer Law Number 15 of 2005, lecturers are required to have a set of competencies, namely: professional, pedagogic, personality and social. This study aim to reveal the relationship between lecturer competencies and efforts to build student character in higher education. So far, students are considered adults and PT does not focus on character building only on cognitive and psychomotor aspects.

Professional Competence
Lecturer professional competence is the ability of the lecturer to understand the courses they are teaching. Lecturer education level can absolutely affect the professional competence. Various studies have shown that academic qualifications have a significant effect on lecturer performance. 16 This becomes evidence that each lecturer has differences in competence, according to their specialization and academic level. 17 To overcome the competency gap between lecturers, it is necessary to increase the training program for all lecturers in higher education. The existing competency gap will have an impact on student satisfaction as customers in higher education. Voss and Gruber explained that the insight possessed by a lecturer is the first thing the students want. Furthermore, they want lecturers who have enthusiasm in teaching, are easy to approach, and are friendly to students. 18

Pedagogic Competence
Pedagogic competence is the ability of an educator that is needed in an effort to manage learning to maximize the results achieved by students. The ability of lecturers in pedagogy can be shown how lecturers create and use available space, use media and lecture time, various opportunities for students to access information, use complex dynamics concepts meaningfully, encourage student problem solving as an exercise in class. 19 Goldstein and Benassi who conducted a study on the characteristics of better lecturers were lecturers who were able to lead and guide the course of discussions in the classroom. 20 In delivering material in class, lecturer fluency becomes a factor that gives impact on student learning. 21 The suitability of the learning methods used, the ability to deliver lectures effectively, the teaching style, and the ability to provide assessments ultimately affect the level of knowledge acquisition and competency development and student academic achievement. 22 The pedagogical competence possessed and implemented by the lecturer, apart from having a positive impact on students, also correlates with the performance and quality of a lecturer. Voss explained that the behavior of qualified lecturers must have at least nine attributes which can be seen in Table 1 below: 23  Table 1. Lecturer Quality Dimensions Qualified lecturers must also be able to do learning evaluation. Evaluation can be done during the learning process and when the learning ends. Hsu and Chiu explained five dimensions of teaching evaluation which are taken from the student's point of view, namely: conformity to the content of the material being taught, learning situations and conditions, interactions between lecturers and students, attitudes in learning, and responsiveness. These five dimensions must be of concern to lecturers in doing the learning evaluation. 24

Personality Competence
Personality competence is an ability possessed by a lecturer which is characterized by a strong, stable, mature, wise, and authoritative personality, as well as being a role model. Personality competencies have a strong impact on increasing teaching effectiveness which leads to the development of student academic achievement. 25 The personality abilities of an educator in higher education have a positive effect on student perceptions. 26 The findings are quite interesting from a study conducted by Slabbert which shows that the Lecturer dress code affects students' perceptions of the quality of lecturers in the academic work environment. The results showed that students perceive male and female lecturers dressed professionally more positively than lecturers dressed casually. 27 Personality competencies are competencies that reflect oneself in self-development. Blašková describes the personality competencies of a Lecturer, including: a personality who acts morally and ethically, a professional personality, a personality with valuable scientific efforts, a famous writer and an honest personality, a personality with excellent teaching competence, a personality who acts as a role model, a mature personality, personality who thinks critically, personality which is sophisticated and communicative, having progressive personality, highly motivated and always motivating. 28

Social Competence
Social competence can be defined as the ability of a lecturer to interact socially effectively. Social competence refers to the ability to get along well with other people, to form and maintain close relationships, and to respond adaptively in social settings. Gedviliene divides social competence into two subcategories: communication and cooperation. Communication skills equip individuals with the ability to understand differences between cultures in an increasingly diverse society and adopt their own behaviors in order to communicate constructively. Collaboration skills ensure effective and constructive participation in social life through the ability to interact, take responsibility and build learning processes and work collaboratively with others from various backgrounds. 29 Social competence is a very complex thing because it consists of various cognitive abilities, emotional processes, behavioral skills, social awareness, and personal and cultural values related to interpersonal relationships. To further complicate understanding this concept, social competence depends on developmental characteristics (i.e., expectations of social competence vary with people's ages), particular social situations (i.e., people may be socially competent in one situation but not in another, or a child may  36-49. appear to be more competent when interacting with socially skilled partners than with people who are shy), and cultural characteristics (i.e., specific acts of social competence are bound by cultural expectations). 30 Lecturers' social competence is important in the efforts to develop students' character and academics. Lecturers' social abilities make them able to maintain the relationship between students and lecturers. Furthermore, this relationship will have an impact on student academic performance. 31 Therefore it is important for lecturers to establish relationships with students in terms of creating opportunities to learn, providing motivation and improving student abilities.

Methodology
This research was conducted at the State Islamic Institute of Lhokseumawe. This research was conducted using quantitative methods. The model used was the path analysis model. Path analysis was used to analyze the pattern of relationships among variables in order to determine the direct or indirect effect of a set of independent variables (exogeneous) towards the dependent variables (endogenous). Respondents in this study were 351 students of IAIN Lhokseumawe who were determined through the table developed by Krejcie and Morgan. Determination of respondents used proportional random sampling technique. 32 Hypothesis testing in this study uses the SPSS application.

Results
In accordance with the theoretical model developed in this study, there are four hypotheses that are tested by path analysis. The results of the research findings can be seen in table 2 as follows:  Based on the result of the first findings in this study, it shows that the effect of professional competence on student character is 0.258. So, professional competence has a positive effect on student character, in which 25.8% of changes in student character can be determined by the professional competence of the lecturer. Then, the result of the second findings in this study indicates that the effect of pedagogic competence on student character is 0.218. So, pedagogical competence has a positive effect on student character, in which 21.8% of changes in student character can be determined by the pedagogic competence of the lecturer. Furthermore, the third research finding shows that the effect of personality competence on student character is 0.160. So, personality competence has a positive effect on student character, in which 16% of changes in student character can be determined by the personality competence of the lecturer. In the latest finding, it is known that the effect of social competence on student character is 0.166. So, social competence has a positive effect on student character, in which 16.6% of changes in student character can be determined by the social competence of the lecturer.

Discussion
Based on the research results, it is found that the overall competences of lecturer have significant influences on the character development of students in higher education. The strength of character is directly related to academic integration. Furthermore academic integration, in turn, is linked to institutional commitment. 33 Lecturers in higher education have a strategic position in developing academic relationships with students. This is because the lecturers have the duty and responsibility to transform science and knowledge to students. This means, if the lecturers have the qualifications and competencies as expected, the process of knowledge transformation will be qualified and take place effectively. 34 Competencies possessed by lecturers, such as: knowledge of the subject, clarity in the implementation of presentations, interaction with students, good teaching creativity, analyzing student learning outcomes, high class activities in teaching and having special notes in the lecture process that are significantly related to student satisfaction. 35 This research means that the competence of lecturers can provide satisfaction so that it has implications for the formation of good student character. The formation of student character starting in higher education can be started with the ability, creativity, and discipline of the lecturer in the learning process for students.
It is different at the primary and secondary education levels, the findings of this study confirm that the professional competence of lecturers has the greatest impact on character building efforts. The difference in the results of this study can also be seen from Slabbert, who showed that personality and dress code were the most important aspects in influencing student perceptions about the lecturers' quality. 36 Professional competence is the ability of lecturers/education to understand their field of knowledge. These findings also indicate that the lecturers' knowledge of the subject/professionalism contributes the most to student satisfaction. 37 Cognitive interactions that occur between lecturers and students before social interaction improve the quality of student interaction in learning in higher education. 38 In higher education, lecturers who have more experience will have better competence, especially in their professional aspect. 39 The teaching experience will have a positive emotional impact, especially in expanding social and cognitive functions, increasing motivation, and increasing self-efficacy. 40 Capabilities are explored in lecturer learning support. Capability lies in the social Syarifah Rahmah & Muhammad Fadhli: Character Education In Islamic Education ... contacts of students and lecturers, which are identified as themes; 'Collaborative relationships', 'providing space for learning', and 'modeling'. The findings are consolidated describing the interaction of lecturers with enhanced student abilities in how students can take advantage of support to improve learning abilities. These insights are expected to develop an understanding of what might be useful when lecturers assist learning and demonstrate the relevance of social justice when students are mentored at university. 41 Lecturer competence has been proven to have an impact on the character building of students in higher education. Therefore, policies both in the short and medium term are needed in an effort to develop lecturer competence, policies in the recruitment of lecturers to get competent lecturers. Furthermore, education and training to improve Lecturer competence, especially on professional competencies that have the most impact on student character, are also important to do regularly. In addition, intensive and productive supervision from institutions is needed in order to achieve better lecturer competence. Trainings, further education and other programs can improve lecturer competence. 42 Character has an important role in building an advanced and modern civilization. Higher education has an important role in realizing good student character. Higher education institutions have a responsibility by the state to educate generations to get the best possible national character and in a good order. Islamic higher education institutions have more complex responsibilities in forming students who have characters that are expected to be able to compete in the modern era as well as to understand and implement Islamic values themselves. 43 Taufiqurrahman explained the real contribution of Islamic education institutions is to building student character. 44 The results of this study have also found that character building of a student in the Islamic higher education system has relevance to the process of effective learning activities, efforts to develop ethics, and ways to shape the moral atmosphere of higher education and student character today. 45 Islamic character development can contribute to overcome the problems that occur in HE. To be able to realize the implementation of character education, a comprehensive 41  approach is needed by placing it on Islamic values as its main philosophy 46 . The process of education in Islam must begin by adjusting to the purpose of human creation itself. As emphasized by the Prophet Muhammad in the hadith: "The believer with the most perfect faith is the one with the best morals." Therefore, character/morality is important to be used as a basis for achieving educational goals 47 .

Conclusion
It turns out that in the findings of this study, the professional competence of lecturers has the greatest impact in the effort to build student character. This is certainly different from other findings that consider that the personal and social competences of lecturers are closer to character building efforts. In adult education, such as among students, they prefer lecturers who have good abilities in understanding science so that they can be their role models. So the character building efforts among students put forward the professionalism of Lecturers.
Character education in HE which has been less of a concern must be one of the priorities for HE. Unlike the usual practice in primary and secondary education which focuses on the environment, in universities the implementation of character education needs to be focused on aspects of improving the competence of lecturers. This research shows that the professional competence of lecturers has the highest impact. Therefore, the professional competence of lecturers must be the main concern in the efforts to develop lecturers at HE.
The use of quantitative methods illustrates that the lecturers' competence can measurefully provide information on character building efforts. The quantitative research method used needs to be explored in qualitative aspects to obtain more comprehensive data. In addition, the concepts used in this study also adequately describe the competence of lecturers in higher education institutions. This study has limitations at the method and theory level used. Qualitative data are needed to provide more description about lecturer competence. In addition, it is necessary to look at other aspects that can shape character such as family background and environment, self-motivation, institutional climate and others.