Diver Training, Has It Really Been Watered Down???

[TMHeimer]

PADI defines mastery as: "meeting meeting Knowledge Assessment requirements listed under Administrative Procedures. During confined and open water dives, mastery is defined as performing the skill so it meets the stated performance requirements in a reasonably comfortable, fluid, repeatable manner as would be expected of a diver at that certification level." p. 24 and 25 PADI Instructor Manual, 2017.

As a DM you should have heard of it. If you haven't it means you have not read the standards.

The concept of mastery has been around since the late 60s. Here is another link for an explanation: http://www.nyu.edu/classes/keefer/waoe/motamediv.htm

NAUI states "In the educational concept of conditioning, i.e., the overlearning of skills. NAUI Instructors should
structure every course to ensure adequate training and practice time." p. 9 NAUI S&P, 2017.

Here is something I've noticed - instructors have taken the PADI slates confined water 1 through 5 and interpreted it as each session is conducted once and then move on, rather than taking the time to master the skills. Years ago as a DM candidate (PADI and NAUI) I was told that PADI does not allow an instructor to go above standards. This is entirely not correct. I've spoken to PADI about this and one can teach above standards so long as it has purpose and benefit.

Again, what has diminished is the amount of time students spend on developing their skills, not standards. This is the fault of consumer (who wants it now without spending time), the instructor (who is willing to shorten training time), and the resorts/operators/shops (who are not able or refuse, for whatever reason, to require more time be spent on developing mastery).

Thanks. Mastery-- ".....skill in a reasonably comfortable, fluid, repeatable...at that certification level".
So that is PADI's definition in the Standards.
Let's see--- "reasonably"....hmm. That word to me doesn't fit well with mastery.
"fluid"....well, OK.
"at that certification level"..... and exactly what level of Mastery is the OW level?
"repeatable"--- OK, but once done successfully, IS it repeated to see if it's repeatable, or do we just assume one time done "reasonably comfortably" is good enough to be called "mastered"?
I'll say it-- I think it's a pretty vague definition on PADI's part. As I proposed before, maybe something like--"You have to successfully complete the skill (even if not "fluid" enough?) 5 times in a row"---would be a better definition.

I agree completely with your last paragraph.--- Leading to John's paragraph: "Learning is the constant and time is the variable....regardless of the amount of time..."
Yes, at our shop, and I assume many others, a student who really CAN'T do a skill or skills in the time ALLOTTED for the pool sessions can elect to get private sessions or join a future class and give it another go. That doesn't address the student who successfully did the skill(s?), but though it was "reasonably comfortable and fluid" in the instructor's eyes, was not at all mastered (back to whoever's definition of that).
....not move on until prerequisite skills have been mastered...."
That's a given. Learning the Major scale before you know the 8 notes in it won't work.

Shurite7, When I took the DM course in '09, owning the instructor's manual was not required. Didn't spend the money buying one and had I read through it at the shop I would not have remembered a whole lot with my memory--certainly not a definition of mastery. I'm pretty sure I knew what I needed to know to assist on courses. Maybe it's a requirement now?
As I mentioned, I often saw students perform a skill once--doing what I would say was an OK job. And that's it. Not mastered in MY book. Probably witnessed this on courses with each of the 11 instructors I assisted, and IMO I would classify all 11 as at least good instructors if not better than good. I think it probably is the norm because of what you said in your last paragraph.

 

[boulderjohn]

Thanks. Mastery-- ".....skill in a reasonably comfortable, fluid, repeatable...at that certification level".
So that is PADI's definition in the Standards.
Let's see--- "reasonably"....hmm.
"fluid"....well, OK.
"a that certification level"..... and exactly what level of Mastery is the OW level?
"repeatable"--- OK, but once done successfully IS it repeated to see if it's repeatable, or do we just assume one time done "reasonably comfortably" is good enough to be called "mastered"?

I agree completely with your last paragraph.

Again, this is a severe condensation of a very big concept.

Mastery Learning when used with performance skills is done through training to "benchmark" standards. This is the ay all performance skills are measured, since you cannot set up an objective scale. in 90% of the cases. I was trained by the College Board to grade student written performances this way. That is how law school application essays are scored. This is how Olympic performances in areas such as diving and gymnastics are scored. I have participate in scoring procedures this way, and I have trained scorers for major examination questions this way. Here is how it works.

Trained and experienced experts view performance results and identify performance levels. (The College Board uses 9 levels for its performance levels.) The experts identify samples of student results at each of the levels, and these are called benchmark performances. They then have new scoring trainees rate the benchmark performances, telling them after each test how the experts rated the performances and why. Before long, the trainees are giving each performance the same score as the experts. They have been "calibrated." It works incredibly well. Each College Board performance is scored by 2 people on that 9-point scale, and they hit the same score 90% of the time. Benchmark performances are routinely slipped into the system to make sure people are scoring them the same way, and when a scorer gets off, they are "recalibrated."

In scuba instruction, people working their way through the instructor training program are given practice sessions in which they have to score students on a simple 2-point scale--meets standard or doesn't meet standard. By the time they are given an instructor rating, they should have a pretty fair idea of what constitutes mastery at each level of performance.

 

[sigxbill]

In response to @Clayton122, John wrote, "Or is your strategy to counter this indisputable fact with vague and unprovable statements about "agency culture"?

I think what @shurite7 describes in #314 is a great example of agency culture: "Again, what has diminished is the amount of time students spend on developing their skills, not standards. This is the fault of consumer (who wants it now without spending time), the instructor (who is willing to shorten training time), and the resorts/operators/shops (who are not able or refuse, for whatever reason, to require more time be spent on developing mastery)."

John also wrote in #316, "When I was certified a couple decades ago, my course took 3 days. Years later when I became a pro, I realized that they accomplished that by skipping a bunch of standards."

It has been my experience that most agencies foster this sort of culture ... and a few don't. There is nothing vague or unprovable about these two observations. I think John has an ideal vision for his agency, and strives to achieve the goals of his standards - mastery, and I respect him for that. But I think John is the exception, and ignores the reality that the majority of his colleagues are not committed to his vision. And that is agency culture ...

cheers

 

[TMHeimer]

Again, this is a severe condensation of a very big concept.

Mastery Learning when used with performance skills is done through training to "benchmark" standards. This is the ay all performance skills are measured, since you cannot set up an objective scale. in 90% of the cases. I was trained by the College Board to grade student written performances this way. That is how law school application essays are scored. This is how Olympic performances in areas such as diving and gymnastics are scored. I have participate in scoring procedures this way, and I have trained scorers for major examination questions this way. Here is how it works.

Trained and experienced experts view performance results and identify performance levels. (The College Board uses 9 levels for its performance levels.) The experts identify samples of student results at each of the levels, and these are called benchmark performances. They then have new scoring trainees rate the benchmark performances, telling them after each test how the experts rated the performances and why. Before long, the trainees are giving each performance the same score as the experts. They have been "calibrated." It works incredibly well. Each College Board performance is scored by 2 people on that 9-point scale, and they hit the same score 90% of the time. Benchmark performances are routinely slipped into the system to make sure people are scoring them the same way, and when a scorer gets off, they are "recalibrated."

In scuba instruction, people working their way through the instructor training program are given practice sessions in which they have to score students on a simple 2-point scale--meets standard or doesn't meet standard. By the time they are given an instructor rating, they should have a pretty fair idea of what constitutes mastery at each level of performance.

John, I actually follow what you say, and it makes sense (even to a Band Director...). I'm sure my post is a severe condensation as you say. Everyone has a different idea of what mastery is. Of course I don't claim to know more about it than the agency experts who develop the Instructor courses.
I'm just throwing out an opinion based mostly on reading on SB that there was a lot more pool time many decades ago--though of course there were terrible instructors, like teachers back then as well as now, including your OW Instructor.
Logic says to me that all those extra hours probably meant more time on the 20 or whatever (24 now) basic skills. As I said back a while, I could be wrong--I wasn't there back then.
I am still a bit unclear of what is meant by "mastery at each level of performance". I mean, either you can do OOA skill or retrieve your reg like it's second nature or you can't--you may whip your unit off & back on or you may fumble a fair bit but get it done. By "each level of performance" does that possibly mean and AOW or Rescue Diver should do a CESA better than an OW diver?
I don't think we really disagree on much, if anything here. Other than as I said, I personally wouldn't call taking 5 blows to clear a mask "mastering it". I've hear an instructor or two say to a class "It doesn't matter how many blows it takes, as long as you get all the water out". And as I mentioned, I saw what I would consider OK performances on all the skills and the student given a pass. If that is considered mastery, I will always disagree-- regardless of all the steps the experts draw up to make sure instructor candidates all follow the standard set. And, as shurite7 pointed out, (to paraphrase) the lack of "mastery" is due to instructors being slack, shops wanting quickie courses, students wanting fast courses (I will add, relatively cheap ones that don't involve 30 hours in the water).
I will continue to figure that OW courses are somewhat watered down from decades ago. We all have heard that apparently a fair bit more "advanced" stuff was taught in these much longer 1970s OW courses. I don't know where that idea fits into this whole basic skills mastery thing.
When you pass your drivers test at age 16 you haven't mastered driving, and probably haven't yet been on an Interstate going 80 (like everyone else).
I did fine coming out of OW course, but it took maybe 5 or 6 dives before I was hovering without consciously trying to--because I hadn't mastered it yet. Many will say that it was because like everyone else, I was taught certain skills kneeling. Maybe. Then again, after OW checkout dive 1, I was no longer adding/venting too much from the BC. Wasn't rocket science, but I hadn't mastered that either.

 

[boulderjohn]

Think baseball.

You may marvel about the skills of the 12-year old shortstop. He might be the greatest Little League player ever. Those skills would not get him on a Major League team

There is an expectation of the buoyancy skills of an OW diver. There are expectations of the buoyancy skills of a tech diver. They are not the same.

 

[boulderjohn]

In response to @Clayton122, John wrote, "Or is your strategy to counter this indisputable fact with vague and unprovable statements about "agency culture"?

I think what @shurite7 describes above is a great example of agency culture: "Again, what has diminished is the amount of time students spend on developing their skills, not standards. This is the fault of consumer (who wants it now without spending time), the instructor (who is willing to shorten training time), and the resorts/operators/shops (who are not able or refuse, for whatever reason, to require more time be spent on developing mastery)."

John also wrote above, "When I was certified a couple decades ago, my course took 3 days. Years later when I became a pro, I realized that they accomplished that by skipping a bunch of standards."

It has been my experience that most agencies foster this sort of culture ... and a few don't. There is nothing vague or unprovable about these two observations. I think John has an ideal vision for his agency, and strives to achieve the goals of his standards - mastery, and I respect him for that. But I think John is the exception, and ignores the reality that the majority of his colleagues are not committed to his vision. And that is agency culture ...

cheers

I am far more in agreement with this than you would think. Yes, there are far too many instructors and dive shops who are happily working to lower standards of performance--far too many. Do you want to do something about it? Fine! Do something about it. What you do should be something more meaningful than lying about standards being dropped, which is simply not true. All you do is create confusion.

 

[Edward3c]

Am I understanding this correctly? Does this mean that in 173 oog incidents, there were 2 cases in which the oog diver reached for and took someone’s primary regulator?

Yes, but remember in that time period there were still divers without a secondary reg. for example ScotSAC continued to teach Buddy Breathing until adviced by legal advice following an incident around 2010. So taking the primary was what they were taught.

 

[sigxbill]

What you do should be something more meaningful than lying about standards being dropped, which is simply not true. All you do is create confusion.

You must have me confused with someone else - because I don't lie. I have never asserted that any standards were dropped; lowered maybe - like the age of junior open water diver, but not dropped - and that too is a part of a legacy of agency culture.

My primary assertion has always been that agency culture is what dictates how standards are applied. the industry modularized Open Water into smaller chunks - with the goal being to reduce it to the smallest chunk safely possible. Modularizing was a good thing. The only thing that is debatable is the grey area of what is the smallest chunk safely possible? Maybe it's padi's 24 basic skills in today's standards, or maybe it is something else. The point is that it doesn't matter what the standards say if that agency's culture doesn't support them. Your way of doing something about it is to focus on your agency's standards, along with QC. My way of doing something about it is promote scuba in cultures that support their standards - and then work on the standards when necessary. The only thing that I find confusing is misleading scuba consumers by promoting the false idea that agency culture doesn't matter - and that all agencies are the same because of generally similar standards ...

cheers

 

[KenGordon]

Am I understanding this correctly? Does this mean that in 173 oog incidents, there were 2 cases in which the oog diver reached for and took someone’s primary regulator?

I think that is what it means.

Personally I think the claim that this happens a lot is a scare story or rationalisation/justification for moving to primary donate. The “they are going to take it anyway” line.

Of course primary donate is relatively rare amoungst the set of people reporting so there would almost always be a secondary available to take.

Also there is almost no risk of meeting a random OOG diver here. Nor do you ever get herds of divers led by a DM. So the circumstances are not likely to lead to a mugging.

 

[Diving Dubai]

That is, a student is taught the needed skills and must demonstrate he/she can conduct the skill during the certification dives. After that, it is up to the student to go out and master the skill by practicing and diving more.

Perfect, you hit the nail on the head.

The fact is, skills are degradable. How many students go out and carry on practising their skills. Not many, not until perhaps they get further into the sport.

I like to use the Buddy check as an example: Everyone would have been taught the buddy check, yet how often do you see divers not bother with it - perhaps in their mind they're too cool or too experienced...