How many students fail your course?

[CAPTAIN SINBAD]

Question for instructors. Which agency do you teach for and how many of your students have not been able to pass your course? Thanks so much.

 

[Zef]

I am not an instructor but based on my observations one has to really try hard to fail a basic OW scuba course or not try at all.

-Z

 

[JackOfDiamonds]

You would have to do something incredibly stupid to fail an OW course.

 

[DivealotZA]

Actually failing the course; none.

Have had a few drop out when they get to the pool stage due to fear...and have also had some of them come back and try until they overcome it...

All-in-all I would guesstimate less than 10 drop-outs in +-300 certs

Remember the courses are made for young kids to pass them too - so they're not exactly difficult..

 

[tbone1004]

NAUI-full semester long course at a university so it's pretty irrelevant in this discussion
roughly 30% drop out in the first 4 classes due to swim-tests. This is not "fail", but they "quit"
Roughly 20% of the balance are not invited to go to OWT-near 100% have passed NAUI's requirements, but not ours and are given referrals. Our standards are incredibly high and these students are invited to retake the class at no cost to them to continue working towards certification once they meet our standards.
Of the balance that go to OWT, roughly 100% pass. Very rare for one to not pass if they got that far and if they didn't, we tend to go far out of our way to help them get there. Usually it is due to thermal issues that they can't continue, but every once in a while we have someone who's brain just turns off in the water. They're invited to come back to OWT again in the next semester to try again.

If I teach outside of the university, it is near 100% because I am exceptionally picky about who I accept as a student. Perks of being independent.

 

[JackD342]

PADI
Fail, or bail?
Maybe 1-2% struggle enough to give up, usually folks who can't deal with mask removal. Often they are there for a spouse etc. and not for themselves, not motivated to overcome.
Only ever said "no" to one youth. Too distracted in the water, was a danger to himself and others.

 

[scrane]

I have run across quite a few new open water graduates who have no business diving. I have also seen many brand new divers who do very well. There seems to be very little flexibility in the system to provide students the extra help they may need to gain confidence and skills.
That said, I believe there are some people who are just not cut out for diving.

 

[boulderjohn]

Almost all agencies now use an educational approach modeled on Benjamin Bloom's concept of Mastery Learning. In mastery learning, the students keep working on skills until they master them. They thus never fail--they are always still working toward a goal. Students who do not pass such classes do not fail them--they just decide that the goal is not for them and stop working toward it.

Here is a quick summary of the difference:

• In traditional education, time is the constant, and learning is the variable. (We teach for a specified amount of time and then measure the student's performance to determine the results.)
• In mastery (or standards-based) education, learning is the constant and time is the variable. (We teach the students for however long it takes for them to reach the specified standard of performance, monitoring their progress and providing help all along the way.)

I suspect that the question is based on a belief in one of a handful of agencies that reject that notion, some of whom take great pride in their high failure rates, as if that means they do a better job than others. To me, that is like a plumber bragging about the high number of repairs he makes that still leak when he is done. An instructor's job is to work with a student to bring the student up to an acceptable level of performance, not merely to assess the student and walk away.

 

[Rred]

Bravo, scrane.
I had the less common pleasure of taking SCUBA as a university offering. Taught mainly by a ex-D-day frogman. On the first meeting (A Thursday?) he warned us that we'd have to do 40 laps in the Olympic sized pool on Monday morning and we all quietly stared at each other and said "Did he say 40? Did he really say 40?" and being as it was pre-classes and parties, well, I never did any practice that weekend. And had just come out of three months mainly in the desert, not a lot of swimming. But I figured, wtf, they've got hooks and poles and things and surely, when I stop swimming they'll fish me out right?
Monday comes around, fully half the class (and you needed either seniority or great luck to sign up for it) wasn't there. And the instructor says "OK, everyone in and you need to swim 20 laps and at least half have to be some kind of crawl or..." and we're looking at each other again, "He said *20* today, right? He said 20?!"
AFAIK there were no fails. If you needed work (like, I couldn't handle breathing through my mouth while my nose was open underwater) you got extra time and coaching and someone helped you through it. When we finally were certified, by NASDS, as far as I know everyone passed.

But that's because we were taught by a professional, teaching a skill, concerned with safety, and under no great constraints for time or generating customers. That's not the reality of diving shops today. They break everything down piecemeal, so passing every "nugget" is real easy, and if the result is a diver who's missing some basic skills for a couple of years....well, it keeps the shop in business, and that's a reality that takes priority.

If an instructor isn't passing everyone--isn't the shop owner going to start complaining that he's costing them business?

 

[tbone1004]

@boulderjohn that's a great assessment. We have tradition education at our basic levels as dictated from the university and because it's on a semester rotation it's not like a normal dive shop where they can just come back to the next course in a couple of weeks. Our technical/leadership courses are mastery based so it takes a lot of them quite a bit of time. If they are committed to pass, we will get them there come hell or high-water by giving them all the time and resources we can to get them there. Sometimes you can't make the horse drink, but it's very rare.

@Rred your experience sounds exactly like how our DSO has set the program up