Appropriate No of Logged dives to become a DM/instructor

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Before I start this thread is in now way meant to be disrespectful to Candidate DM’s, Qualified DM’s and Instructors.


My question is this. Is 60 logged dives prior to qualification of a DM and or 100 logged dives for an Instructor – an appropriate experience level? (PADI)

My perspective. I’m at 100 dives, I dive warm waters but in challenging conditions. However I don’t feel that I have enough experience to be either a DM or an Instructor at 100 dives I’m still learning….

When I was getting certified I thought DM’s and Instructors were gods and while I’m happy with my diving I’m not confidant that I’d be a good peer or would I?

On the flip side I appreciate that for most people getting to 60/100 dives takes a few years and if you raised the logged dive requirement to say 200/250 then there would be a shortage of candidates – or at least a smaller pool of them…

It would be good to hear opinions from those who aren’t qualified (as DM’s Instructors) as well as those who are with the benefit of hindsight

Please lets not let this thread drift off into Agency bashing – although different perspective is welcome and lets attempt to keep this thread on topic (for a change :wink: )
I haven't read the thread yet but I see it like this. No matter what level you set as the minimums, there will always be unqualified people reaching that minimum and becoming pros. Hell I've seen a few people with hundreds, near a thousand (if you can believe them) dives that I wouldn't dive with if they paid me.

I don't think numbers are any kind of measure but I believe a skills pre-qualification should be applied. Can you hover for 2-3 minutes motionless? Can you demonstrate appropriate use of various finning techniques? Can you ???

I have less than 40 dives right now, but I have a lot more experience than some of the people I've dived with who have over 200. Does that make me qualified? Not a chance. I have a whole lot to learn but people who spend their diving careers in a quarry are never going to be "great" divers, in my opinion.

Then there's the other aspect, which I believe the pro courses are supposed to teach, which is can someone actually convey the information needed by the students? There are plenty of professional teachers, in SCUBA and elsewhere, who are just ****ty at their jobs.
 
Finally I think, I am not telling a secret, saying that it is nearly impossible for a DM with 60 or an instructor with 100 dives, to find a job in any serious dive center. These guys certificates are usually just worth for displaying the certificate at home at the wall and for presenting the card on the dive boat during vacations.

So are you saying that the technicality of the number of dives you need is unimportant, because you can't land a job without the proper experience and ability?
 
1000 dives for instructor, 200 for DM as well as show proficiency in every aspect of diving they will be teaching.
. . . .my recommendation is based on having dove with several hundred different divers of varying experience from novice to more dives than me and certified to more extremes.
OK, thanks for the follow-up explanation. And, I can readily appreciate the background in which you make the statement. Nonetheless, and at some risk of creating a mis-impression, I suggest that this is the context in which you made the statement - your experience - but the response has nothing to do with a / the basis for the specific numbers. The mis-impression that I want to avoid is that I am somehow trying to argue in favor of particular numbers. I am not. My point is that numbers are rather arbitrary, and there is no particular basis for 60, or 100, or 200, or 1000, or even 25. So, if someone says that '60 dives for DM is too few' - a subjective comment in itself, which started the thread - then what quantitative basis exists for saying that 200 dives is sufficient? None that I know of. If 200 is sufficient, is 199 too few? If so, why? Or, if 199 is 'OK, close enough', then is 198 also 'OK, close enough? Since there is no quantitative basis that I am aware of, other than personal preference, I see no predictable benefit associated with increasing the values, from 60 for DM and 100 for an Instructor, to some arbitrarily higher numbers.
And proficiency in environments from tropical and shallow to rough seas and mixed gas with extended deco.
And, what documented relationship exists between ‘proficiency in . . . mixed gas with extended deco’ and competence as an Open Water Scuba Instructor? Should every instructor be required to have ‘tropical and shallow’ experience, even if they live in the PNW? Individually, I am not disagreeing with you on the value of the experience. At the time I became credentialed as an OWSI, I had at least experience, if not proficiency, ‘in environments from tropical and shallow to rough seas and mixed gas with extended deco.’ I had technical dive certification and experience, and I personally think this background helps me as an instructor. But, I can’t document that it has had any impact on the safety of my students, or their safety after certification.
I think my numbers reflect 2 things. One the DM candidate will have most likely have seen a years worth of seasonal variations. Two the DM candidate will have time to hopefully become proficient enough to qualify as a professional.
Both of these are very reasonable points but, again, unrelated to any specific number of dives. I personally like the idea of a required 'minimum of one calendar year of diving experience’, with documentation of logged dives being conducted in each quarter of the year', which I think would serve that purpose better than a particular number of dives. But, others may disagree.
in many occupations it would be years until you were trusted enough to be entrusted with other's lives.
True for the health professions, although primarily because of the bulk of the academic requirements, not just prior experience. Not necessarily true for certain other 'professional' pursuits, such as aviation. For many years you could conceivably occupy the right seat of a commercial airliner (usually a small regional), with less than 300 hours total flight time (the left seat captain required a higher minimum). The likelihood of a low time pilot occupying the right seat reflected primarily supply and demand – periods of high demand meant hiring pilots with lower hours. You could even go zero to hero at a FL flight training mill, and depending on the economy, find yourself in a commercial job early in your career. However, as a result primarily of the Colgan Air crash in Buffalo, Congress – in an apparent attempt to appear to be doing something / anything - passed legislation that required the right seater to have a minimum of 1500 hours of flight time. Sounds good - sort of a ‘let’s just bump the standards up a bit’ response. What is truly ironic about the situation is that the Pilot-in-Command of the Colgan aircraft at the time of the crash had over 3200 hours total time, while the right seater had over 2000 hours. Yet, the PIC made a mistake often associated with student pilots and low-time certificate holders – pulled the nose of the aircraft up instead of adding full power. The number of prior experience hours flown by the crew were irrelevant. An experienced pilot pulled the nose up and stalled the aircraft, sending it into the ground. Notably, the 9000+ hour first officer of the Air France 447 did the exact same thing, and neither he, the 11,000+ hour Captain, nor the 9000+ hour back-up first officer figured it out before the plane crashed in the sea killing all on board. Prior experience minimums - flight hours or logged dives - isn't necessarily a guarantee of professional competence.

IF there were a substantial number of injuries and deaths occurring annually in conjunction with scuba diving, I suspect there would be a serious effort to 1) regulate scuba diving and scuba instruction, and 2) adjust minimum requirements (e.g. logged dives) for certification, of both a) the diver and b) the instructor certifying the diver. There simply aren't substantial safety issues. As an Instructor, I can say I am 'entrusted with other's lives.' But, the likelihood of something untoward happening is actually quite small, and I have trouble identifying the correlation between my number of logged dives and the safety of my students.

One description of the aviation legislation was particularly telling, ‘the act is well-intentioned to generally enhance the level of qualifications for new airline pilots’, ‘although its mandates lack significant correlation to the causes of the accident’. And, that is the issue for the scuba industry. Despite well-intentioned calls to increase the minimums for dive professional credentialing, what ‘significant correlation’ can be demonstrated between the minimum number of required dives for certification as a DM or Instructor, and the overall safety of diving?
 
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Quote Originally Posted by 100days-a-year View Post
in many occupations it would be years until you were trusted enough to be entrusted with other's lives.
True for the health professions. Not necessarily true for certain other 'professional' pursuits, such as aviation. ...
I am not sure what value this point has at all. Yes, it is true in some professions in which people are entrusted with other's lives, but by no means all. The problem is the general vagueness associated with the phrase "entrusted with other's lives."

How much additional training is required of a licensed driver before being allowed to drive a taxi or a school bus? How much specific training have the teenage lifeguards at the local pool had? There are many jobs that put the jobholder in a position of being entrusted with people's lives that do not require years of training. The amount of training required is usually commensurate with the amount of time it takes to learn what is required. A medical doctor's license takes many years because there is a heck of a lot to learn. It doesn't take years to learn how to teach people to do the skills required for OW diving.
 
So are you saying that the technicality of the number of dives you need is unimportant, because you can't land a job without the proper experience and ability?

Meanwhile I am working for 7 years as a full time instructor in the mediterranean area, mostly in Turkey - and yes, here it is nearly impossible to get a job in a reputable dive center as a DM and much less as an instructor, without the experience of a few hundred dives. I know dive center owners who say:"I won't hire an instructor with less than 1000 dives." This can be called good or not, it's simply fact.
 
Meanwhile I am working for 7 years as a full time instructor in the mediterranean area, mostly in Turkey - and yes, here it is nearly impossible to get a job in a reputable dive center as a DM and much less as an instructor, without the experience of a few hundred dives. I know dive center owners who say:"I won't hire an instructor with less than 1000 dives." This can be called good or not, it's simply fact.

So does that man that you agree with those who say that the number of dives required is by the agency for certification isn't all that important?
 
...what ‘significant correlation’ can be demonstrated between the minimum number of required dives for certification as a DM or Instructor, and the overall safety of diving?

This can not be answered so. You'd have to carry out a study with two comparison groups and then see if there are significant differences. But IMHO someone with a reasonable number of dives and - as mentioned before - with a wide range of experience, is much better prepared to respond to a problem than someone with just a handful of dives and nearly zero experience, because it's much more likely that he has been confronted with different types of problems before in his diving career and on these experiences he can fall back. And I don't count the problem solving exercises of any DM course or IDC as such experiences, because the fellow students which are acting as student divers behave completely different than real student divers. While these fellow students usually behave normal immediately as they remark that their fellow identified their "problem" and responded to it, a real student may possibly stumble from one problem to another and if the DM or instructor does not know such a thing, the whole thing may grow under certain circumstances to catastrophe.

---------- Post added January 16th, 2014 at 07:52 PM ----------

So does that man that you agree with those who say that the number of dives required is by the agency for certification isn't all that important?

I don't understand your question. My point of view you may review in my original post.
 
I don't understand your question. My point of view you may review in my original post.

I am asking because you seem to be contradicting yourself.

On the one hand you say that a person should have larger number of dives before starting DM or instructor training. On the other hand you seem to be saying that it doesn't matter how many dives the person has when starting the training, because they aren't gong to be hired unless they have enough skill and experience.
 
I am asking because you seem to be contradicting yourself.

On the one hand you say that a person should have larger number of dives before starting DM or instructor training. On the other hand you seem to be saying that it doesn't matter how many dives the person has when starting the training, because they aren't gong to be hired unless they have enough skill and experience.

I can't comprehend your conclusion. I say at most, no matter where the agencies are setting the bar, the market regulates itself what is accepted and what not. And what is below the bar for the market, is just making money for the agencies and for fun for the customers but of no real worth.
 
I started my DM with 100+ dives, but they had a lot of variety, from RIB Diving in choppy seas in a 7mm, shark trips in the Maldives, liveaboards, drysuit in Iceland etc. I got my DM as a favour for an instructor friend who was facing some tough times.

Following that I took and passed my AI course, but never bothered applying for the cert. The main reasons:

- I'm lucky enough to have a very good full time job and didn't want the responsibility.
- I reflected on things, and I didn't feel personally ready.
- I didn't want to be a sales man :wink:

In terms of poolside manner, I'm more than ready. Silly stuff like stopping people jumping in with out weights, getting kit organised, marshaling students around, answering questions, making sure the coping stones don't get smashed by a clumsy giant stride, having a laugh with the customers etc etc.

This stuff is about hours logged in a professional setting, not how many dives you've done.

I'm perfectly happy to carry on OW diving for myself, and helping out at the pool, but that's where I intend to leave my pro-journey at least for now.

Si
 
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