Dumbing down of scuba certification courses (PADI) - what have we missed?

[Fred Calhoun]

Hey just noticed that there's an entry for logged dives that's empty near my picture. Let's see. Since 1973 when we started logging I'm up to 4300 or so. I'll go get the book out of the boat. I am impressed by peopkle who list 10,000 dives or 15,000 dives. If you dived every day for ten years (no days off) you'd log 3650+. Most people don't dive every day - certain;y not for years and years. So logged numbers over 5000 are suspect - especially from the many people who claim them. No one shoyuld be upset about this - just do the math. Every day for 30 years would get you 10,950. 365 per year for 40 years would get you 14600. I've been diving for 55 years. I probably have 7000 dives. The measure of a diver isn't how deep he or she goes, but how often he or she goes. I would guess the average person gets to log 25 dives a year.
Swizzle stick scubas can imagine many dives. Good for them.

Calhoun

 

[Standingbear56]

Name's Calhoun. New at this business of e-mailing (if that's what I'm doing).
Not sure you muised anything. But - the focus these days by dive shop oriented scuba courses is to show people how to use scuba gear (the more tghe better), trather than to produce a comfortable beginner diver. All you need do is look at new "lately" scubas and count the hoses and the weights and the dangerous stuff they've been convinced to schlepp on their bodies. Or the danmgerous things they've been taught to do (like drag their masks to wrap around their necks (need to take the regulator out of your mouth, then you can't use it and you can't use your snorkel).

Calhoun

Hi Fred, and welcome to Scuba Board.
I'm not quite sure where you are getting your information, but some of it appears not to be accurate.
You say that shop oriented courses are to show people how to use scuba bear (the more the better) rather than to produce a comfortable diver. Question # 1 is what equipment do you feel is excessive? One of the most common equipment configurations today is DIR. If that is considered excessive, I'll eat my fins.
#2 - What makes you believe that we don't want to produce divers who are comfortable in the water? Recreational diving is for fun, and if you are not comfortable, how are you having fun? Besides look at it this way - if a diver isn't having fun, wouldn't they be not only a bad advertisement for the store, plus they would be a bust for return sales. It's in any shops interest for their customers to be enjoying themselves.
#3 - Count the hoses, weights and and the dangerous stuff they've been convinced to schlepp on their bodies? What R U talking about? A recreational diver with an alternate air inflator like an Air II and wireless computer has a total of 2 hoses (3 if using a dry suit). They should be wearing the minimum amount of weight they need for proper bouyancy. What do you consider dangerous stuff? The knife????
#4 - Drag their masks to wrap around their necks so they have to remove their regulator to put it on? This is an older way of carrying a back up mask, and if removing a regulator from your mouth for a few seconds is scary to you, then perhapse you shouldn't be diving. Nowadays, a spare mask is generally carried in a pocket, and most of the divers who do carry spares are technical and/or cave divers. Sir, these divers are generally on a level where taking a regulator out of their mouths is child play. By your description of all the equipment being carried, it seems to me that it is this group which you are describing. They are NOT recreational divers in the traditional sense. They are trained and equipped for diving way in excess of what is considered sport recreational diving, and yes, they do have more equipment. That equipment is there so that they can accomplish 2 things: 1) complete the dive mission as safely as possible and 2) return home safely.
If I have misunderstood you, I apologize ahead of time.
Safe Diving,
George

 

[Colliam7]

Walter has, once again, captured much of the essence of the issue, and I agree with his perspectives.

In a quality class, more time is devoted to practicing the skills of diving. In a quality class, more skills are taught that give students, especially the weaker students, confidence in their own abilities as divers. In a quality class, students learn not to panic. A quality class actually prepares divers to dive on their own with just a buddy. Most classes today prepare students to follow a divemaster around.

This is a critical point. I have to wonder if we are able to effectively prepare all students for independent diving, to the extent we would like, using current, time-constrained approaches. They are able to meet the standards for skills. But, for some (not all, not even 'most') what is the level of anxiety they experience the first time they go out with a buddy, without the instructor present, or a divemaster along on the dive? Would more time in the pool / open water, and more practice, enhance their confidence in their own abilities, and lead them to more effectively continue to develop as divers? I don't have data to substantiate the premise. I can't help but believe that it would.

Removing them allowed instructors to crank lots of students through classes in a very short time period and increase profits. Profit is a good thing, but it should not come at the cost of safety. It has.

However from personal observations, I can tell you that at any gathering I've been to, there is at least one person who tells me that they were certified in a fast class somewhere, went diving, got injured or scared and never did it again.

This is where I am a little more uncertain. There is a shared, visceral sense that safety has been compromised. Much of the comment in regard to this issue is anecdotal. I am just not aware of objective data that supports that sense. 1. More people are diving than 20 years ago. 2. There is somewhat better reporting, if not adequate documentation, of accidents and incidents than 20 years ago. 3. There seems to be more accidents and incidents than 20 years ago, but it is not clear that the increase is in any way disproportionate to what would be expected on the basis of 1. and 2. In fact, it seems that the proportinate change is a slight decrease. Is it because the 'Darwin effect' in this case is not diver death or injury, but diver drop-out? Possibly. But, we bring a lot more people into dive training that may not be as 'serious' as (the fewer number of) scuba students were 20 years ago, and there is a higher level of attrition among weaker divers, helping to keep the safety record from declining.

 

[bleeb]

This is where I am a little more uncertain. There is a shared, visceral sense that safety has been compromised. Much of the comment in regard to this issue is anecdotal. I am just not aware of objective data that supports that sense. 1. More people are diving than 20 years ago. 2. There is somewhat better reporting, if not adequate documentation, of accidents and incidents than 20 years ago. 3. There seems to be more accidents and incidents than 20 years ago, but it is not clear that the increase is in any way disproportionate to what would be expected on the basis of 1. and 2.

Just to complicate the data collection even more, if you want to judge how good a training program is, don't you want to look mainly at what's happening to people the 10-20 dives right after training? Not saying this is easy or even possible. Another approach might be through root cause analysis of accidents, and how much initial training contributed. This might be slightly more practical since there may be at least a few reasonably well documented accidents reports from over the years.

In fact, it seems that the proportinate change is a slight decrease. Is it because the 'Darwin effect' in this case is not diver death or injury, but diver drop-out? Possibly. But, we bring a lot more people into dive training that may not be as 'serious' as (the fewer number of) scuba students were 20 years ago, and there is a higher level of attrition among weaker divers, helkping to keep the safety record from declining.

For the sake of the discussion, I'll repeat a thought which I don't think has been said yet in this thread. Which one is the cause and which one is the effect? Are a significant fraction of the divers dropping out of the sport after relatively few dives dropping out because of lack of comfort traceable to training that was not sufficient to make them feel comfortable, or is was the training in the old days better at identifying people who were unlikely to ever be comfortable?

 

[Walter]

This is where I am a little more uncertain. There is a shared, visceral sense that safety has been compromised. Much of the comment in regard to this issue is anecdotal. I am just not aware of objective data that supports that sense.

There are no legitimate accident statistics about diving and there never will be. Let's assume that the accident rate has stayed the same or dropped, I don't believe it has, but for the sake of discussion let's make that assumption. Why would that have happened? Perhaps because most divers now dive in situation in which they have DMs to baby sit them? Perhaps they don't have reported accidents because DMs rescue them and prevent injuries? Perhaps because DMs catch their mistakes before they turn into accidents? Perhaps because they are scared and stop diving before they get hurt? I do know I made my share of rescues when I worked as a DM in the Keys. There was only one injury ever reported in all those years, but there were a great many that could easily have become injuries or deaths if someone hadn't been right there to make the rescue. It's amazing how many folks with their brand new c-cards aren't ready to dive.

Are a significant fraction of the divers dropping out of the sport after relatively few dives dropping out because of lack of comfort traceable to training that was not sufficient to make them feel comfortable, or is was the training in the old days better at identifying people who were unlikely to ever be comfortable?

I choose A. A quality class is much, much easier especially for students who aren't all that comfortable in the water. It requires them to actually learn to swim and then to go through the steps to get comfortable with diving.

 

[Nemrod]

I have been reading posts which talk about the simplification of PADI and other certification courses over the years. I though my PADI OW & AOW course were fantastic, but it makes me wonder---

Have new divers like myself missed important and useful information that was taught pre-1983? What has changed?

What you missed:

1) Initial deco training, serious study of the Navy Tables and multi level and multi stage diving, discussion and problems with calculating air consumption, required demonstration of physical laws involved in diving, greater understanding of narcosis, discussion of O2 toxisity.
2) A full range of sport diving depth to 132 feet
3) Actual swimming skill requirments and as well requirements for doff and don, survival swims, free ascents (not CESAa), dive survivial skills (swimming without a mask, no air procedures)
4) Confidence and self reliance
5) Bouyancy skills
6) Environmental aspects (currents, rips, shore diving, sealife)
7) A little farther back, no BC diving, why, because you learn weighting, and bouyancy
8) Introduction to doubles from the beginning (once upon a time small doubles were as common as singles and not considered advanced or tech)
9) Nobody told you not to carry a BIG knife

N

 

[drbill]

IMHO almost all dive agencies have greatly reduced the information given in open water certifications, at least compared to my course back in the 1960's. Now one has to take OW,. AOW and Rescue to get essentially the same material covered (using 1960's knowledge and equipment of course) in my OW course by Los Angeles County.

I have been critical of PADI and the other agencies in the past for this, but have come to realize that the course I was given for around $400 back then (if I remember correctly) would probably cost on the order of $1,200 or more today. By breaking up the training into multiple levels, these agencies have given people a more economical intro to SCUBA diving.

I still feel divers should receive more training than what is provided in the basic OW cert class for most agencies. However, I am financially challenged enough to recognize there are good economic reasons for doing this.

 

[tuner fish]

I'm not saying anything about actual instruction, however the PADI textbooks are certainly missing something. They lack editing, are full of mistakes and are written in a casual style.

 

[D_B]

Dr Bill, your spot on why the agency's have broken up the training .. and, if you have a dedicated & competent instructor, you can turn out a diver with enough skill to learn the finer points safely as he dives more

 

[bfw]

Have new divers like myself missed important and useful information that was taught pre-1983? What has changed?

1983 isn't a good year to propose as a turning point. PADI's removal of buddy breathing, introduction of the one weekend quicky and the "resort course," prohibition of task loading, and request to instructors to stop mentioning air embolisms all happened after 1985. If you were trained pre-1983 you predated most of the dumbing down.