History of Diver Training

[Dirty-Dog]

I think that, like most things, you get out of it what you put in.

The material is (from what I have read and heard) more segmented or compartmentalized than it used to be. This is neither good or bad. As diving has grown in popularity, there has been a demand for shorter, simpler classes that let people get in (well, under...) the water faster. I suspect most people do a basic OW certification and than procede to dive with various guides. Personally, I don't see Sue and I diving without a guide in the foreseeable future. Is it because I think we're poorly trained? Not at all. Inexperienced, yes, but not poorly trained. I believe I could plan and execute a dive safely, and in certain circumstances I would do so. But for the most part, we travel to dive sites, and it just makes sense to go with someone who knows the local sites and conditions.

Not everybody who wants to dive wants (or needs) to dive to 300 feet on air, penetrate the Andrea Doria, cross over to an 800 foot cave penetration and then do deco on their spare air while posting to scubaboard from their AI wrist computer with built in GPS and Secret Decoder Ring.

 

[Diver0001]

The problem is what Rob (Diver0001) mentions. In time the assessor's judgment will shift. It can shift in either direction. That is because the instructor may see too many assessments of either a high or low level. When that happens, the assessor needs to be recalibrated.

This is handled in professional assessment organizations, such as the College Board in the U.S., by a continual monitoring process. One aspect of this process (and there are more aspects) is the resubmission of previously scored materials to ensure that they are still scored at the appropriate level. This is not possible in scuba instruction. What is supposed to happen is that instructors should be connected in some way to a course director (or the equivalent) who will monitor instructor performance to ensure that it maintains the proper level of scoring.

Hope this helps.

John, This brings up the question in me, "who recalibrates the course directors?"

I don't recall hearing from anyone I know who is a course director that this happens....

R..

 

[Diver0001]

Upset are we? You are entitled to your opinion. It would appear however, that you are in the minority.

Hardly. Most people don't read these threads (thankfully). Most of them are like Sailnaked, they read the first few posts and then get ticked off with yet another thread started expressly to bemoan the fact that things aren't like they were in the "good old days" and then they roll their eyes, let out a long sigh, wonder why the moderators never do anything to stop it and then click on "New Posts" again and go read something else. The simple fact is that most of these threads turn into preaching to the chior after the first 10 posts.

If you added another option to your poll called

"The amount of beating this dead horse is ridiculous"

Then you would see what the real "majority" opinion is. I can edit the poll for you if you want to make it meaningful. As it is, the "majority" opinion has been carefully excluded.

R..

 

[SailNaked]

I took OW from NAUI 1982 that is as far as I can go back,
the difference between then and now is:
we learned Buddy breathing because not everyone had an Octo.
I did it in a horse collar because I could not afford a BC and my weighting was closer to neutral.
the computer was not used by anyone I knew.
and the instructors would knock off my mask or pull out my regulator randomly so that i could put it back.

other than that we had about the same number of sessions and learned all the same stuff and open water was 4 dives. divers today learn much more in the classroom.

oh and when I was done I could dive to anything on the table but I should be careful if I wanted to dive past 100ft and should go with some one that has done it the first time.

 

[Diver0001]

That is what we do right. show them the basics and set them free?

That's an interesting point. Most diving instruction is aimed at providing the student with a skill set that still isn't "internalized" but that's good enough to work on without the instructor present. Some instructors evidently don't trust that and believe that the skill set should be internalized before the student leaves the course. I think that this point sort of encapsulates the entire crux of the discussion that happens in many of these threads.

can you fault the A student because he learns too fast?

I'm not sure where this came from but I think you're saying that courses don't need to be long in order to give the student what they need. That's true. That's why the course is performance based. However, what does happen (more than we may want to admit) is that instructors, shops, students... .everyone... lets themselves become a slave to the amount of "time" they allocated for the course and they "cram" it in.

In fact, what we're seeing in many cases is that people are applying traditional "time based" thinking to "performance based" training. Maybe the simple solution for resort courses is to give students a card with a letter grade on it. It might make sense. After all we do it in most time-based training.... People would then get a card that says OW (A) or OW (C-) or whatever..... That way we could all see that the first one achieved mastery and the second one didn't but was certified anyway.

In all seriousness, it might be a more reasonable way to go for "time driven" courses than the lie we have now, which is to collectively put our head in the sand and pretend that everyone mastered the skills when they got their C card.

Incidentally, as an aside, I can say with some conviction that the really brilliant students seldom have A averages. They're usually stunned into a coma by the slow pace of public education and often end up under performing until sufficiently challenged....

yes some people do not feel comfortable even when they are competent, ask Diver0001 on a different thread. some people "need" a divemaster to follow them around after a class, this is all attributable to the individual not necessarily the teacher.

I am not saying it is not possible to have a bad instructor, however if a student can clear their mask in a pool, can clear it in some form of open water, and does not feel they need to see it again, then they can probably clear their mask on their own.

Sure. Aptitude and talent vary a lot.

we teach them to do a buddy check. they can do it when they leave our course, they know they should do it on every dive. It is their decision if they want to do it on the dive boat, not a result of bad teaching.

So does motivation

some students can learn the whole thing in one hour, ask anyone in the Caribbean teaching Discover Scuba. So how is it that we can not possibly teach an OW course in 4 days?

I set out to disagree with this point but in retrospect, I think I see your point. You're right. Some people have an ideal mix of talent, aptitude and motivation and could probably learn how to dive perfectly well with no instructor at all. In fact, I think you could make yourself look like a real super-hero by just screening your students and only teaching ones like this. They'd make the biggest boob look good. In fact, there would appear to be at least one agency playing this game already.

individuals retain information differently. you can not promise me that if you just took seven more days with an OW student that they will retain any more than the 3 day student.

Actually, there has been quite a bit of research about retention done and I'm quite certain that "on average" this statement is false.

I'll leave it to BoulderJohn to give you the finer details but 2 seconds of googling gives us this nice little overview, which is similar to something I recall from one of my first year psychology books:

retention
after 7 days without review: about 33%
after 7 days *with* review: about 83%
after 63 days without review: about 14%
after 63 days with review: about 70%

Read em and weep. It's all about how long term memory works and how the brain decides what to store and what to dump. In fact, I think PADI's didactic system (and those that copied it) is designed specifically to take advantage of this fact but it won't work if you compress the course too much.

R..

 

[tkdgodess]

This is where the problem lies. Not all seek to be trained the same way, but enough are seeking the "easy route" to make it a viable business model. Sometime back in the 70's computers were going to revolutionize the world. People were going to have shorter work weeks, and longer vacations. Instead many people find themselves with less free time today than they did in the past. They want the "Wham! Bam! Thank you please come again!" course because they aren't willing to commit any more of their precious free time than necessary.

Allow me to issue the following challenge to the instructors amongst you:

The next 10 new students you talk to, tell them that you offer a regular course and an extended course. Tell them that the price is the same and you cover the same skills and materials, but one just allows them more time to practice and get comfortable with the skills. See which one they choose on their own, with no pushing from you.

Anyone up for that?

The ow course spread over 2 weekends is far more popular than the class spread over a month, (5 weeks) plus the ow weekend. They leave it until the last minute and want to be certified before they go to a tropical vacation. It's always the person who does this that can barely swim and complains on the skill that they didn't sign up for this. I remind them they signed up to be open water divers certified to dive without direct supervision, and if they don't like it feel free to get out of the pool. Some people can do the weekend course, but for the majority they are exhausted and dummified. Suck it up buttercup, you signed up for it and you must do it to my interpretation of "mastery" - my name is on your C-card. Yah you cleared your mask, but you are clearly freaked out. Just Doing it to get it over with doesn't count, you have to do ALL the skills until I believe you aren't going to kill yourself. You'll thank me later, even if you are crying now as you are R+R your mask.

 

[Cave Diver]

Not everybody who wants to dive wants (or needs) to dive to 300 feet on air, penetrate the Andrea Doria, cross over to an 800 foot cave penetration and then do deco on their spare air while posting to scubaboard from their AI wrist computer with built in GPS and Secret Decoder Ring.

Wormil? Is that you?


Ooops, sorry wrong thread! :blush:

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Some people have an ideal mix of talent, aptitude and motivation and could probably learn how to dive perfectly well with no instructor at all. In fact, I think you could make yourself look like a real super-hero by just screening your students and only teaching ones like this. They'd make the biggest boob look good. In fact, there would appear to be at least one agency playing this game already.

I'm not so sure ... I've seen some pretty inept people go through that program ... including myself at one point. If anything sets that agency's students apart, I'd say it's motivation ... not talent or aptitude.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[boulderjohn]

If anything sets that agency's students apart, I'd say it's motivation

..and you would be right on target with pretty much all research. It does not always use the term motivation, but it's close enough.

Some people have referred to it as Emotional Quotient (EQ). Some call it Learned Optimism. Some have used other terms. The key idea is that the successful student wants to learn, and, more importantly, believes he or she can learn.

A history of success has been shown to be a strong creator of that kind of motivation and self-belief. A history of failure leads to a lack of motivation and pessimism. Why try if you think you are just going to fail anyway?

Two students are given the same assignment:

Student A: "Wow! I have no idea how to do this! I will have to work pretty hard to figure it out, but if I put in the time, I'll get it."

Student F: "Wow! I have no idea how to do this! What's the use? Another failure looms on the horizon. I think I'll go play a video game. I'm pretty good at that."​

This concept has led to some good ideas gone totally awry. It is the same sort of thing as and closely related to my previous refererenec to the failure to understand standards-based education principles. The famed "self-esteem movement" is based on this. The idea is noble and correct--give students a history of success, and they will have a better attitude. Unfortunately, for too many people, their lack of understanding leads them to think that the way to bring success is to lower the standard to the level of the student. They don't realize that the way to do it is to bring the student to the level of the standard. The students aren't stupid--they can tell when the standard has been lowered for them, and that only reinforces the "I can't do it" attitude.

 

[boulderjohn]

I would like to take a pause right now and ask a simple question to the OP.

Wayne, why is it that you start a new thread on this topic roughly every month? I mean, how often do we have to discuss the same topic? Have you ever looked deep into your soul and asked what is motivating you to do this?

I can only think of a few possible reasons.

1. You are hoping that you will get a different response. If so, wasn't it Einstein who said that doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is one sign of insanity?
2. You are hoping to wear down the opposition. You know you can count on the same 4-5 sympathetic posters who have been posting on almost the same topic with undiminished vigor for years to fill the thread with multiple supportive posts. Those who disagree with you, on the other hand, have admitted a number of times in your past threads that they are growing weary, very weary, of repeating the same responses every time. Perhaps you think that eventually they will all go home and leave you and the other 4-5 to continue all alone. That actually happened for a while in the last big thread on this topic.
3. It is a symptom of a obsessive compulsive disorder. If so, there are people who can help.
4. You see yourself on a Quixotic mission to slay the giant windmills of the present world, and you cannot help but dream the impossible dream.

Is it one of those choices, or is there a different reason?