NAUI versus PADI

[boulderjohn]

You did not make a case that I could discern that there is no way to establish reliable and valid objective criteria for evaluating the skills that need to be learned in OW class.

I would just like to point out that the people who created the current standards were thoroughly trained in the area of performance assessment theory before they developed those standards. They weren't just amateurs flying by the seats of their pants.

I could write an entire book or at least a chapter to explain it all, but I don't have that kind of time. To be honest, I don't feel any need to convince you about the matters that consumed so much of my professional life. When I was training the people doing those kinds of assessments, it mattered, and I was paid pretty well for what I did. In this thread, it doesn't matter, and I am not being paid. You can go on assuming I don't know what I am talking about--in the long run it won't make any real difference in the world.

 

[tursiops]

Other instructors will perhaps reject a perfectly functional mask clear because it doesn't meet their mental picture. Perhaps such an instructor will require the student to do it one-handed, for example and reject it if the student touches the mask with both hands.

Many years ago, my wife flunked her OW cert dives, done on a referral with (the late) Hugh Parkay in Belize. Her mask clearing required she hold her nose with the other hand, which Hugh disallowed; her instructor at home, in the pool, was OK with it She worked on that and later certified. Hugh was right, even though the standard was not specific on that point. She is now an instructor, and is more like Hugh than like the one she had in confined water.

 

[AlexL]

I have even been told that (not sure if it's true) they record you on video when you do your "test" so that an independent instructor can evaluate your performance to confirm your certification/rating (whatever they call it).

during our fundies class, every drill was recorded, and we were debriefed while reviewing the video afterwards. it was extremely strongly explained that no copies of the video were allowed outside of the classroom environment, and are completely destroyed once the student evaluation by the instructor has been completed. this rule was described as sacrosanct, and immutable by our instructor.

there is no mention of video in the standards and guideline sections for complaints, quality control, and records (v8.0, sections 1.6, 1.8, 1.10)

 

[stuartv]

I would just like to point out that the people who created the current standards were thoroughly trained in the area of performance assessment theory before they developed those standards. They weren't just amateurs flying by the seats of their pants.

I could write an entire book or at least a chapter to explain it all, but I don't have that kind of time. To be honest, I don't feel any need to convince you about the matters that consumed so much of my professional life. When I was training the people doing those kinds of assessments, it mattered, and I was paid pretty well for what I did. In this thread, it doesn't matter, and I am not being paid. You can go on assuming I don't know what I am talking about--in the long run it won't make any real difference in the world.

Like taking so many things (that aren't) as PADI bashing, I did not suggest that you don't know what you are talking about.

I suggested that you explained pretty well about the difference between reliability and validity and the need for both. What I didn't get, and was hoping for, is a similar explanation (doesn't have to be any more than you already wrote about reliability and validity) of whether you can define reliable and valid criteria for objectively assessing individual scuba skills and, if not, why not (as I said, in a similar condensed form to the explanation you already gave).

I recognize your expertise and am prepared to take your word for it. But, anytime someone says "this cannot be done", I always wonder why.

 

[RainPilot]

NAUI used to have a Loved One clause.

If someone had done all the requirements and “passed” the course, the last question an instructor had to ask themselves was }Would I let this person dive as buddy to my son/daughter/wife/husband?”

If the answer was No, they didn’t get certified.

When I do a flight test for issuance of a license, it’s the same question I ask before passing the candidate.

 

[Birddog1911]

This one bothered me more than all of the other mental diarrhea combined.

The PADI standard explicitly states that the instructor is required to "explain local procedures and techniques" (those are the exact words) and one of these people in particular could not be stopped from stating in every thread he was in that PADI instructors were forbidden from doing exactly that.

R..

Just a funny aside, while I'm working through this topic. I am, at this very moment, also going through my online IDC, and I just happen to have paused, because my network computer hates me and often won't finish a slide without a hiccup, on examples of adapting to local divers needs.

 

[guruboy]

I require a 25m underwater swim in nothing but a bathing suit, as well as a full ditch and don with displacement snorkel clear to be performed before I take anyone to open water as demonstration of in water comfort.

What do you mean by full ditch and don? Do you mean you require your OW students to swim to the bottom of a pool, ditch their snorkel equipment, surface, descend again, put all the snorkel gear back on, and then finally surface while doing a displacement clear?

If so, your OW class is pretty hardcore man. Snorkel ditch and don USED to be a NAUI Divemaster skill (no longer required). I have seen instructors who can't do a snorkel ditch and don.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

NAUI used to have a Loved One clause.

If someone had done all the requirements and “passed” the course, the last question an instructor had to ask themselves was }Would I let this person dive as buddy to my son/daughter/wife/husband?”

If the answer was No, they didn’t get certified.

When I do a flight test for issuance of a license, it’s the same question I ask before passing the candidate.

Used to? When did they drop it? I retired as a NAUI instructor only a year and a half ago, and this standard was part of my classes right up until I quit teaching ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

We trained under SSI with an instructor who does most of his diving in classes he teaches. Almost all of his diving is instructing and he teaches on the knees. When we got in the pool he wanted us on our knees and it seemed nuts. While he would work with my wife I would be behind him floating 12" off the bottom of the pool. Touching the bottom was a fail to me. Then he would work with me on my skills and he would want me on the bottom. He had me way overweighted so being neutral was harder because I had this big bubble and I was at about 9 feet of depth but it was an ok game to try to overcome it. The equipment didn't make it any easier. 10 lbs of lead on a belt in a bathing suit in fresh water in a poodle jacket. I had a clue that it was a horrible way to teach but only because I had already scuba dived for realz.

Reminds me of a check-out dive I was required to do in Roatan. I've told this story here before ... the DM told me to do a mask flood and clear and a reg recovery. We dropped down in about three feet of water in the lagoon in front of the resort, and I hovered a few inches off the bottom and did the required exercises. He tossed a thumb and we stood up ... whereupon he explained to me that he needed me to kneel on the bottom so he could make sure I was properly weighted ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

As someone who has taken a lot of courses, but who is not an instructor, I don't feel particularly good about instructors who "go beyond the standards" in the sense of requiring (and not just offering) additional skills for certification. There is an expectation going into a course that it will be taught to standards. That is, you are taught the skills that are in the book, and if you perform them adequately (correctly, repeatedly, and fluidly for the level of diving that you are seeking certification for), you'll receive the card. There is a lot of thought and collective wisdom put into those standards by the certification agency and for a single instructor to think he knows better and require his students to do more borders on hubris for me. If you really think the standards are insufficient, work to get them changed.

There are, in some cases, legitimate reasons to go above standards. For the most part, standards serve well the majority audience ... which is the tropical diver who will be diving in relatively benign conditions under the leadership of a dive guide. For those who dive locally ... often in turbid water, perhaps in a dry suit, in areas where dive guides are generally not available, it is often necessary to add some materials to better prepare those people to dive in the conditions they'll be facing after class is over.

As a NAUI instructor in the Puget Sound area for more than a dozen years, I always taught things that weren't in the book ... some info on tides and currents for dive planning purposes, several "how to" techniques on being a dive buddy, particularly in low vis conditions (our local vis during summer is commonly in the five foot or less range, due to plankton blooms), some techniques for navigation ... because most of our diving is shore diving, and many of our sites requires you to return to fairly specific public access points between tracts of private property, and several other techniques that a diver would need to know in order to plan and execute a dive successfully in local conditions. Granted there are plenty of people who take classes with more traditional instructors who don't receive that information in their OW class. And it's always recommended to them that they buddy up with more experienced divers once class is over. But that induces another bad habit, which is dependency. I would prefer to release my students with a card that implies they're qualified to dive here only after assuring myself that the implication is true ... or that it satisfies my own definition of what that means.

Fortunately I worked for an agency that recognized that the instructor knows more about their local conditions than people living someplace else who may never have dived in conditions like that. My agency trusted me to keep the best interests of my students in mind, and allowed me to not just teach those skills, but require my students to achieve a certain level of mastery in them before handing them a c-card. I would not have wanted it any other way.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)