Help improve diver training — 4-minute anonymous survey (student research)

[Victor Micallef]

Academic study exploring how certified divers recall and apply their training limits.

Hi everyone

I’m Victor Micallef, a student on the B.Sc. in Diving Safety Management at the Institute of Tourism Studies (ITS), Malta.
I’m conducting a short anonymous international survey to understand how certified recreational divers remember and apply the safety limits taught during their certification — such as depth, gas, and supervision/buddy rules.

• Who: Certified recreational divers (any agency, any level)
• Time: About 4 minutes
• Privacy: Completely anonymous – no personal data collected
• Purpose: Academic research only

Take the survey here: Microsoft Forms
or scan the QR code in the attached image below

Your input will help highlight how well safety concepts are retained after certification and may inform future improvements in diver education.

I’ll post a public summary of the findings here once analysis is complete.
Thank you for taking part and for sharing this with other divers or club members.

Best regards,
Victor Micallef
B.Sc. Diving Safety Management — Institute of Tourism Studies, Malta
victormicallef23@its.edu.mt

 

[Cthippo]

Oooh, this is going to be controversial...

If you have been on SB a while you know that the "certified depth" for OW divers is a hotly debated topic. Some will claim it is 60', some 90, some 130'. All have evidence that supports their view.

The phrasing of the survey seems.... off?

SCUBA certification just says that on such and such a date the person named demonstrated at least minimum competence on the basic skills and is allowed to buy air fills. Beyond that there is no enforcement nor meaningful requirements for further education and certification. The closest thing we have to enforcement is shops requiring evidence of certification for fills or boats wanting higher certification to do certain dives, but those are both informal mechanism that are easily overcome. In most of the world the diving regulations are nothing more than recommendations from a training agency carrying no force of law or policy.

Given all that, a survey on "what do you remember from your certification and do you follow it" is of questionable value because 1. we were not all taught the same limits, and 2, the divers here have, and all divers should, taken a look at their own knowledge, skills, and abilities and their risk tolerance and made their own decisions about what they are and are not comfortable doing. For some that is only diving with a guide in warm water. For others it is technical diving in overhead environments. Some of us dive solo, with or without additional training.

 

[Knauf]

Subject: Observation based on teaching experience — Diver behavior and safety retention


Dear Victor,


During my teaching experience with recreational diving students, I have noticed some recurring behavioral patterns that might be relevant to your research.


I observed that the level of risk tends to increase after long periods of diving inactivity, as many divers seem to lose their procedural confidence and awareness underwater.
Similarly, adherence to safety rules gradually decreases over time unless the diver undergoes periodic refresh training.


In addition, I have encountered a particular group of divers — mainly recreational female divers aged between 20 and 28 — who tend to apply safety rules less rigidly, believing they can manage situations through experience or intuition.
This behavior does not necessarily stem from negligence, but rather from a higher level of confidence and situational adaptability.


These patterns have been observed consistently among several students, and I believe they could provide useful insight into how experience, gender, and time since certification influence the retention and practical application of diving safety principles.


Best regards,
PETER KNAUF
Instructor / Dive Traine

 

[Victor Micallef]

Oooh, this is going to be controversial...

If you have been on SB a while you know that the "certified depth" for OW divers is a hotly debated topic. Some will claim it is 60', some 90, some 130'. All have evidence that supports their view.

The phrasing of the survey seems.... off?

SCUBA certification just says that on such and such a date the person named demonstrated at least minimum competence on the basic skills and is allowed to buy air fills. Beyond that there is no enforcement nor meaningful requirements for further education and certification. The closest thing we have to enforcement is shops requiring evidence of certification for fills or boats wanting higher certification to do certain dives, but those are both informal mechanism that are easily overcome. In most of the world the diving regulations are nothing more than recommendations from a training agency carrying no force of law or policy.

Given all that, a survey on "what do you remember from your certification and do you follow it" is of questionable value because 1. we were not all taught the same limits, and 2, the divers here have, and all divers should, taken a look at their own knowledge, skills, and abilities and their risk tolerance and made their own decisions about what they are and are not comfortable doing. For some that is only diving with a guide in warm water. For others it is technical diving in overhead environments. Some of us dive solo, with or without additional training.

Hi Cthippo,
Thanks for taking the time to reply — you’ve raised several important points, and I appreciate the opportunity to clarify and refine my thinking.
You’re absolutely right that “certified depth” is a contentious issue in this community, and that dive training standards and local regulations differ widely.
That said:

1. Survey design vs. uniform standards
   My intention isn’t to impose a one-size-fits-all “correct limit,” but rather to explore how divers recall and apply whatever limits they were taught. Yes — different agencies and instructors impose different rules — and I did include questions that ask respondents about the agency of their training so I can segment responses by training lineage.
2. Value & assumptions of the study
   You’re correct that the authority of a certification is often informal: agencies set standards, but enforcement is via community norms, dive center policies, and personal discipline. What I aim to investigate is how much of that formal training actually sticks and gets converted into practice — not to judge individuals or diver culture, but to gain insight into the gap between “what was taught” and “what is done.” If that gap is large, it may spotlight opportunities to improve how diving education is structured.
3. Decision-making vs. blind adherence
   I fully agree that experienced divers should (and do) adapt decisions based on personal skills, environment, and risk tolerance. That adaptability is real and valid. This survey is not meant to discourage that but to see whether the safety principles taught initially serve as a reliable baseline, especially for divers who may drift away from them over time.
4. How this can still be useful
   
   • If patterns emerge (e.g. many divers forgetting safety rules or diverging from them over time), that could justify refresher training models or instructional reinforcement strategies.
   • The research might inform diver education institutions about how to better scaffold long-term retention — not just initial certification.

Thanks again for your honesty and skepticism — that’s exactly the kind of engagement this needs to be solid.

Best
Victor

 

[Victor Micallef]

Subject: Observation based on teaching experience — Diver behavior and safety retention


Dear Victor,


During my teaching experience with recreational diving students, I have noticed some recurring behavioral patterns that might be relevant to your research.


I observed that the level of risk tends to increase after long periods of diving inactivity, as many divers seem to lose their procedural confidence and awareness underwater.
Similarly, adherence to safety rules gradually decreases over time unless the diver undergoes periodic refresh training.


In addition, I have encountered a particular group of divers — mainly recreational female divers aged between 20 and 28 — who tend to apply safety rules less rigidly, believing they can manage situations through experience or intuition.
This behavior does not necessarily stem from negligence, but rather from a higher level of confidence and situational adaptability.


These patterns have been observed consistently among several students, and I believe they could provide useful insight into how experience, gender, and time since certification influence the retention and practical application of diving safety principles.


Best regards,
PETER KNAUF
Instructor / Dive Traine

Hi Peter — thanks so much for your thoughtful comment.
That’s exactly the kind of pattern we’re hoping to test in this study. In fact, your observation about procedural confidence degrading after periods of inactivity (and the resulting drift from safety rules unless refreshers are done) aligns almost perfectly with one of our core hypotheses.
We also hypothesized that demographic variables (including gender, experience level, and time since last dive or last training) would correlate with deviations from taught safety limits. Your insight about female recreational divers in the 20–28 age range is particularly interesting, and is the kind of subgroup-level nuance that could emerge in our data.
I really appreciate you sharing those firsthand observations. If you have any anecdotal examples about how quickly the drop-off seems to occur, or whether certain refresher strategies helped, I’d love to hear more (if you’re willing). Either way, thanks again for contributing — this is exactly the kind of community input that strengthens the research.
— Victor

 

[Alekseolsen]

So, I believe if one is to rethink diving and limits its key to actually dive frequent to "maintain profiency". Thus when your study claims "diving frequent" with less than 50 dives a year I believe it's hard to get valuable data. Ie diving 12 times a year would make you a newbie for the rest of your life - and no training would be sufficient to have you safely dive any overhead/challenging dives.

 

[tursiops]

The survey seems to assume that most divers have very little experience, have poor memories, and need constant refreshing.
That is not my observation.
I observe considerable experience, and normalization of deviance due to a "it hasn't and so it can't happen to me."

 

[Victor Micallef]

So, I believe if one is to rethink diving and limits its key to actually dive frequent to "maintain profiency". Thus when your study claims "diving frequent" with less than 50 dives a year I believe it's hard to get valuable data. Ie diving 12 times a year would make you a newbie for the rest of your life - and no training would be sufficient to have you safely dive any overhead/challenging dives.

Hi Alekseolsen, thanks for the great point — I completely agree.
The issue of dive frequency is central to this research. Your observation that around 12 dives a year still feels like being a “newbie” fits perfectly with what I’m investigating. The study aims to identify whether there’s a threshold where safety knowledge and procedural confidence start to decay more rapidly.
Really appreciate your insight, it captures exactly the kind of real-world experience this study is built on.

 

[Victor Micallef]

The survey seems to assume that most divers have very little experience, have poor memories, and need constant refreshing.
That is not my observation.
I observe considerable experience, and normalization of deviance due to a "it hasn't and so it can't happen to me."

Hi tursiops, thanks for calling that out, I think you hit on a really important dynamic.
“Normalization of deviance” is exactly one of the behaviors I’m hoping the data will capture (or at least flag). The idea that people gradually accept riskier practices because “nothing bad has happened yet” is dangerous, but very human. I’m hoping the responses might show how often that drift happens and under what conditions (experience, dive type, environment, etc.).
Your observation about experienced divers behaving more confidently—and potentially slipping rules over time—is one of the critical tensions I want to explore. Thanks for highlighting that nuance.

 

[boulderjohn]

In post #2, Cthippo nicely explained the training limit controversy. The simple fact is that many people have a mistaken understanding of those limits. From what I am reading and from taking the survey, I believe you may be one of them.

This is concerning because you seem to be in some way representing Malta, a country that has alarmed the world of scuba several times with judicial decisions that attempted to impose penalties on scuba divers based on the country's faulty understandings of scuba rules and procedures.