Build the Perfect Certification Agency

[Diver0001]

What I would really like is for instructor to talk to proprective diver about the first class will really give then. what class people should take after that and the kind of diving that is available (for warm water , cold, cave tech,......) What skill they will need to improve during there diving life. ......

I'd like to add to the discussion about this comment too.

The prospective student doesn't know much about diving but what they DO know is why they are interested. It is not required by standards for instructors (or shops, which is where most students make first-contact) to talk about the student's motivations for wanting to learn.

Having said that, it is in the best interest of everyone, shop, student and instructor, to get those "dreams", "goals" and "motivations" out in the open before training starts. No scuba course is a one-size-fits-all affair. Even the basic open water course can be tailored to fit the particular mix of dreams, goals and motivations of a particular student. Smart instructors (and shops) will talk to the student about this openly and discuss how far they will come in the OW course openly. This is called "managing expectations" and is an integral part of delivering a good quality course. Never promise what you can't deliver and deliver whatever you promise.

In my day job this is a major part of what I do..... maybe 80%. So as a scuba instructor it's so ingrained into my DNA to do this that I would never dream of training someone without first knowing what they wanted to get out of it. Communicate, communicate, communicate.

Alas, for many students and many instructors, this is unfamiliar terrain and on both sides people can tend to operate by making assumptions. An instructor might feel shy about asking a student what they want incase they can't deliver, and a student might not feel comfortable talking about their dreams incase it sounds stupid. But it's EXACTLY this effect that results in so many instructors delivering quality that the student feels is under par and why so many students give up on diving after their basic training.

In my experience, going into this helps enormously. IIRC I wrote previously on this thread (at least I hope it was this thread) about how managing expectations can help both student and instructor. What I'd like to suggest on this post is that getting expectations out on the open is not ONLY the instructor's responsibility. As a student, if you're not telling your instructor what you want, then it's not entirely his fault for not knowing.

R..

 

[DaleC]

Here's a big problem in the industry... everyone is so worried about "losing revenue" to someone else that it distracts them from getting any revenue in the first place.

I'm betting the (apparently successful) shops in Colorado look at the dollars in the cash register as GAINED revenue, and never once consider that a dollar in a cash register in Cozumel as lost revenue.

The financially successful shops probably don't, but what has that got to do with instructors earning a living?
If an agency/shop sells so many DM training packages that they have a plethora of DM's willing to work for free, it's good for the business...

I'm saying, if you live in Colorado, or Alberta, or Death Valley; you should be very wary of getting into the whole "dive professional" gig if your goal is to "earn a living".

How does this relate to the OP:

If you run dive instruction tailored to the volume of people who will naturally seek instruction you can maintain high(er) standards. If you try to create an unnatural income stream you will have to either allow more dives in, or sell more to the divers who already exist. Either way, standards drop. People become divers who should not be, divers advance in training faster than they can assimilate learning, DM's and instructors enter the professional ranks before they have enough experience.

 

[boulderjohn]

For a large portion of my life in education, I was involved with setting standards. I was appointed to the Colorado Goals 2000 task force that oversaw the creation of state standards. I taught the process of creating standards in workshops. I taught the concept of mastery learning, the educational theory used by almost all agencies today. In mastery learning, students are not taught for a certain amount of time, assessed, and then given either a passing or failing grade; rather, they are taught for however long it takes them to reach a mastery level. If a student cannot clear the mask on the first try, we do not give the student a failing grade and send him or her out of the pool. We keep working on it until it is done right. That is why no one fails scuba classes today--they keep going until they either get it right or they decide it is not for them.

So how is mastery defined? People who do not understand how the term is used in mastery learning theory confuse it with "demonstrating the qualities of an expert performer." That is not how it works in education. There is an understanding that whether someone is dong a great job at anything in life is doing it in relation to their level of training. You can give the same writing assignment to a 5th grader and to a college senior. The most outstanding performance by the 5th grader would not get a passing score for a college senior. The instructor must have a training level understanding of what constitutes mastery and use that understanding to assess student performance.

The problem is that you will have a very hard time defining it in words. In fact, it really can't be done. If you decide that mastery of a skill is demonstrated by performance in a comfortable, fluid, repeatable manner, you have to add that it should be done as would be expected of a diver at that certification level. We do not expect brand new open water divers to have the buoyancy and trim control of a cave instructor.

Instructor training is supposed to give new instructors a common vision of what is expected of a new diver so that they can use that expectation for assessment purposes. That is where I think we have a problem. Scuba training began decades ago, before we had any of the modern devices for controlling buoyancy and trim. That is when the expectation for what a new diver should look like developed, and it has been slow to change. In 1960, the agency now called NAUI was formed, and it was formed by getting together independent instructors from around America in training sessions and coming up with starting standards. In the mid 1990s, Al Tilghman, NAUI founder and instructor #1, put together a reflection of those early days a quarter century earlier. The History of NAUI that he wrote includes the opinion that the typical open water student diver produced in beginning classes in the 1990s had better diving skills than the typical instructor who helped found NAUI in 1960. (I know this contradicts what a lot of people think.)

I believe that the typical OW graduate today SHOULD be a better diver than the typical student in the 1990s, and that is because of changing methods of instruction. Last year PADI methods changed to encourage (but, sadly, not require) that students be taught while neutrally buoyant and in horizontal trim from the very first lesson. This is a dramatic change from learning on the knees as was done since instruction began in the 1950s. When that idea was first promoted to PADI, they were more than a little skeptical because they had never seen it done that way. Now they are sold on it. When I went to my last regional meeting, the regional director made a big deal about telling the instructors how much better students are when they are taught that way. When more and more instructors begin to see that new OW divers can and should have solid control of buoyancy and trim, then that will become the standards vision of what a student is capable of at that level of training.

That is how standards evolve.

 

[RJP]

I'm saying, if you live in Colorado, or Alberta, or Death Valley; you should be very wary of getting into the whole "dive professional" gig if your goal is to "earn a living".

That's another problem with the industry... it's largely comprised of people that are trying to figure out how to "earn a living." We need more people in the industry who are trying to figure out how to earn a million bucks!

 

[SeaHorse81]

What I'd like to suggest on this post is that getting expectations out on the open is not ONLY the instructor's responsibility. As a student, if you're not telling your instructor what you want, then it's not entirely his fault for not knowing.

True enough, but I suspect that most students first enter the shop with a fuzzy sense of what they want and why. The instructor is in a good position to help them figure it out as they talk, and the instructor is in a better position than the student to know how important that talk is. The instructor, by initiating the conversation, also conveys that it's perfectly fine and not offensive to have the talk.

I'm saying, if you live in Colorado, or Alberta, or Death Valley; you should be very wary of getting into the whole "dive professional" gig if your goal is to "earn a living".

Point made. We're risking some serious thread drift here.

 

[Diver0001]

I work at a shop in Holland that saw a great many students coming in and looking for a "vacation course". Local diving involves current, turbid water and cold.... in the winter... *bitterly* cold diving.

Living in Western Europe means that a LOT of good diving is within reach via automobile or on short flights. We have quite a few certified divers (and divers taking certifications) who never dive locally.

So... this shop could do what many others do... offer short intensive training to get theory and confined done before going on vacation....... or they could do something else.

So they became a travel agent. What they do is instead of selling vacation courses, they sell the trip and train the student from A to Z and literally go with them to their holiday destination to finish the training.

Currently they make 10 trips a year and are still scaling up and partnering up with foreign operators to create a "seamless" experience. Trips are now going all over the globe. If they do a live-aboard, they don't book seats, they book the whole boat and make a club event, which also puts them in the position to determine the agenda and give customers just what they wanted. It's really quite eye-opening.

And if you think it's all tropical, think again. We did Norway (orca diving) and every couple of years so we go to Scapa flow. They'll also book a boat for a weekend on the local inlets or do a wreck course where we work together with local North-sea boats.

It's really quite something. The owner of the shop has that kind of "out of the box" mentality. As an instructor it's a blessing because he tells us. "Don't just train them. Whatever you do make them an *active* diver". It gives us a lot of room to deliver quality because we can talk to divers about their dreams and motivations and train them to do exactly what they want to do.

R..

 

[DaleC]

That's another problem with the industry... it's largely comprised of people that are trying to figure out how to "earn a living." We need more people in the industry who are trying to figure out how to earn a million bucks!

I would say we need more people in diving who are not involved in the industry.

Like the internet, you lose something intrinsic when you attempt to monetize an activity. That's why I like the club model and/or the sense of community that some agencies attempt to foster. Yes, there is a place for money in diving but divers should not equate the experience itself with it. A person could spend a whole lifetime developing and refining the skills they learn in a simple OW course all the while using rudimentary but robust gear. That message is all but lost in modern diving today.

 

[RJP]

I would say we need more people in diving who are not involved in the industry.

Like the internet, you lose something intrinsic when you attempt to monetize an activity. That's why I like the club model...

So you're suggesting that the diving industry needs to be comprised of people who are not in the diving industry so that we can better avoid monetizing scuba diving... possibly by implementing a "not-for profit" model?

I think we've already got that nailed down with the existing people.



I'm with you on getting people from outside scuba into the industry... but maybe we can set "trying to earn a living" at least as the minimum standard?

 

[DaleC]

Going back to the initial discussion at the shop and how my thougts would play out:

Customer 1: Hi I'm going on vacation soon and want to dive while I'm there.
Shop: Ok, we have an entry level resort diver course that will get you set for that. You can do the basic learning here and the water part there or all of it here and just go diving with a guide there.
Customer 1: Great.

That's as far as that goes. Everyone's happy and the customer gets the skills they need.

Customer 2: I want to go diving.
Shop: Ok, we have an entry level resort diver course that will get you set for that. With it you can go diving with a guide.
Customer 2: Oh, I don't know about that. I'm pretty sure I want more than that.
Shop: Ok. Well you could do that course and see if you like diving or if you really feel sure about it you can take the "independent diver" course. It will cost more and more will be expected of you but when you are done you will have all the foundation skills needed to be an independent diver.
Customer 2: Will I still need to dive with you?
Shop: No, you can join shop events if you wish, and there is an association of independent divers that meets that your course entitles you to join, or you can dive with your own group. We believe in connecting divers and cementing what we've learned by diving. So, whatever you choose it's all about becoming a better diver and we are here if you need us to help with that.
Customer 2: Great. What about becoming an instructor?
Shop: Well, that's a whole other discussion. We prefer divers to get some skills and experience before looking at the professional pathway. It involves a lot of learning, commitment and responsibility. Why don't you take the independent course and we'll see how you like that.

Wouldn't that be refreshing. No one is denied. Courses are sold, but the emphasis is placed in the right areas. And imagined if each level (and participating diver) was valued for it's own sake and not seen merely as a stepping stone to the next.

---------- Post added January 8th, 2015 at 11:06 AM ----------

So you're suggesting that the diving industry needs to be comprised of people who are not in the diving industry so that we can better avoid monetizing scuba diving... possibly by implementing a "not-for profit" model?

I think we've already got that nailed down with the existing people.



I'm with you on getting people from outside scuba into the industry... but maybe we can set "trying to earn a living" at least as the minimum standard?

No, I'm saying turning diving into an industry beyond its natural capacity creates the problems we see. It's hard to maintain quality control when you are trying to bake a billion pound pie to carve up.

 

[boulderjohn]

Going back to the initial discussion at the shop and how my thougts would play out:

Customer 1: Hi I'm going on vacation soon and want to dive while I'm there.
Shop: Ok, we have an entry level resort diver course that will get you set for that. You can do the basic learning here and the water part there or all of it here and just go diving with a guide there.
Customer 1: Great.

That's as far as that goes. Everyone's happy and the customer gets the skills they need.

That would be the current PADI scuba diving course, which is rarely taken.

Customer 2: I want to go diving.
Shop: Ok, we have an entry level resort diver course that will get you set for that. With it you can go diving with a guide.
Customer 2: Oh, I don't know about that. I want to be independent.
Shop: Ok. Well you could do that course and see if you like diving or if you really feel sure about it you can take the "independent diver" course. It will cost more and more will be expected of you but when you are done you will have all the foundation skills needed to be an independent diver.

That would be any agency's current OW course.

Customer 2: Will I still need to dive with you?
Shop: No, you can join shop events if you wish, and there is an association of independent divers that meets that your course entitles you to join, or you can dive with your own group. We believe in connecting divers and cementing what we've learned by diving together.

Lots of clubs exist now. Agencies cannot control that, though, and I don't think dive shops should, either. They could be held liable for any incident arising from a club over which they have any level of control.

Customer 2: What about becoming an instructor?
Shop: Well, that's a whole other discussion. We prefer divers to get some skills and experience before looking at the professional pathway. It involves a lot of learning, commitment and responsibility. Why don't you take the independent course and we'll see how you like that.

Wouldn't that be refreshing. No one is denied. Courses are sold, but the emphasis is placed in the right areas. And imagined if each level (and participating diver) was valued for it's own sake and not seen merely as a stepping stone to the next.

Refreshing? Can you identify one way that it is different from what happens today?