Is dive certification really necessary?

[Eric Sedletzky]

Just my observations (worth what you paid for them),

I am an instructor in a very high risk profession, and with the training we conduct we always try to have an outside evaluator do the final check. We use an hierarchy of choices, starting from highest up and furthest from our organization and ending at individual instructors swapping students as a worst case.... critical point being that you don't get your eval from the one who did the instructing.

I like Eric's idea of isolating the instruction from the evaluation in scuba, largely due to the human tendency to not see their own faults (if I suck at teaching buoyancy, per se, and am checking my own students.... how good does their buoyancy have to be for me to pass them?). This would also give the instructors better feedback (Joe Snuffy failed his check dive due to _____. This is the third student from that instructor with that failure, is it the student or a weakness in the instruction?). It doesn't have to be a "higher governing body," it could be as simple as an agreement between 2 shops (If I can, I'll check your students, and you check mine), and swapping students within the shop if an outside instructor isn't available.

Secondarily to this, by separating the check dives from the instruction the source of instruction ceases to matter. Pay for the check dive separately, and it's up to instructors (and/or shops) to determine price of the instruction piece. If Joe Snuffy comes in cold and says " I want to take my check dives," and is apprised of the fact that he CAN fail them and have to pay to try again, then it doesn't matter if he was taught by your shop, a different shop, or the school of YouTube. Either they pass and get their card, fail with a detailed explanation of which standard(s) they failed, or fail with a major safety violation and an explanation of why the Eval was cut short (for their safety).
I do think this would open the door to more budget limited divers, and not prevent those who can afford more of the shops time from using it as well. It would also most likely result in an improvement of the instructional community (I know that those who evaluate my students in my profession always give me feedback, good or bad, on how they did and we share teaching techniques more because of it).

Respectfully,

James

This is PRECISELY what I’m talking about.
I can add that in a vacation tropical environment where somebody wants to try scuba on a whim, the cert they would get would not be a real full blown cert like what you would get if every detail of a standard OW course was followed, but rather a provisional permit to dive under the direct guidance and supervision of a DM to no more than something like 40 -50 feet in benign conditions.
I don’t think it’s fair that some people go through a regular complete course to the letter and some people can get the same OW card just doing a barely half ass course.
There needs to be better standardization. When an operator sees an OW card it should mean that the diver went though a full blown course, it shouldn’t be a big mystery that maybe they got a Cracker Jack course. This is just wasting their time.

 

[CycleCat]

... and who haven't the foggiest idea how to do any of the dive planning they were taught in their classes. It is not that their training was lacking--they had just learned over the years to be dependent upon others.

I think that is what it is. New OW card holders like me have (just barely) the info to start planning their own dives (preferably under the supervision of a more experienced diver), but many of them CHOOSE to dive rarely and fall into a rut of following a DM on their annual vacation to clear warm waters. If they don't start applying the knowledge immediately, they lose it.

 

[johndiver999]

I think he was self-taught too.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

maybe they got a Cracker Jack course.

You sir, are on a roll today. Going to steal that one too!

 

[2airishuman]

What problem will an instructor see that the person who is training themselves won’t experience themselves and fix themselves

It depends on the individual.

Good instruction has many benefits over even the best books and videos:
1) Good instructors can identify specific problems quickly, that the student would not be able to figure out quickly (or in some cases at all) by themselves. Simple things like a mask that leaks because there's hair caught in it or the rubber is turned under by the straps. Or determining that a reg won't seal to the valve because of a missing o-ring.
2) The instructor is present in part to serve in a rescue role if a cascade of mistakes should occur. As alluded to upthread, this allows individuals who are perhaps not exactly watermen/mermaids to undertake dive training
3) By providing reminders and focus on poorly understood and non-intuitive hazards, the instructor can ensure the student will become a safe diver. e.g. AGE, failure to maintain buoyancy at the surface, hazards of depth
4) Instructors can serve as curators of information. There is a lot of bad and out-of-date diving advice out there and some advice that is, at best, situationally appropriate.
5) People vary in how they are able to learn. The fact that you, @mac64, can learn through a combination of written (and perhaps online) material, combined with practice and gradual expansion of boundaries, does not mean that all persons can do so.

 

[Celt]

It depends on the individual.

Good instruction has many benefits over even the best books and videos:
1) Good instructors can identify specific problems quickly, that the student would not be able to figure out quickly (or in some cases at all) by themselves. Simple things like a mask that leaks because there's hair caught in it or the rubber is turned under by the straps. Or determining that a reg won't seal to the valve because of a missing o-ring.
2) The instructor is present in part to serve in a rescue role if a cascade of mistakes should occur. As alluded to upthread, this allows individuals who are perhaps not exactly watermen/mermaids to undertake dive training
3) By providing reminders and focus on poorly understood and non-intuitive hazards, the instructor can ensure the student will become a safe diver. e.g. AGE, failure to maintain buoyancy at the surface, hazards of depth
4) Instructors can serve as curators of information. There is a lot of bad and out-of-date diving advice out there and some advice that is, at best, situationally appropriate.
5) People vary in how they are able to learn. The fact that you, @mac64, can learn through a combination of written (and perhaps online) material, combined with practice and gradual expansion of boundaries, does not mean that all persons can do so.

If enough water goes into the mask your going to take it of and look at it. I learnt that that when I was 10 dabbing for flounder. The first thing anyone would do with a leaking bottle is turn it off and check it. If a tap was leaking water all over the floor would you need an instructor to tell you to turn it off.

 

[JamesBon92007]

Here in Ontario in the cold Great Lakes you need at least AOW to do the wrecks deeper than 60 ft, most charter operators have this requirement.

Well, yea. Here in California you need AOW on many of the commercial boat dives, which is what Hitler ran into. We do most of our diving in Mexico and they seem to have the attitude that you are either a certified diver or you are not. Of course, if you are going to the cenotes then they will require cave certification and you'll need the right card to get Nitrox, but for most of the general diving they don't seem to care. The whole OW concept seems to be largely mis-understood. PADI presents it as being a starting point and you are expected to keep learning and gain more experience, and once you dive below the suggested 60 feet (preferably with an instructor or DM) then you are no longer limited to 60 feet. My girlfriend has been to the suggested AOW limits so, even if she doesn't have the right c-card, it ends up being the same thing, more or less. I suppose there might be some dive ops that would accept her dive logs as evidence of experience and ability, and others that would require the AOW card. The dive ops that do the Black Water (aka Pelagic) dives in Hawai'i state that you must first dive with them before they let you sign up for the trip, but I was asked to go before I'd been on a dive with them (Kona Honu and BID). Like I said earlier, I guess I just look like an experienced diver. Kinda like here in California, at the grocery store checkout, the clerk will speak English to some people and Spanish to others, and they can tell just by looking at them. Lately I seem to look like I speak Spanish, judging from how I've been addressed in Mexico. It's weird because lately my Spanish has been improving and sometimes I actually even know what they said. How someone can tell from looking at me I don't know. A couple of years ago if I started out in Spanish they would immediately switch the conversation to English.

 

[boulderjohn]

I can add that in a vacation tropical environment where somebody wants to try scuba on a whim, the cert they would get would not be a real full blown cert like what you would get if every detail of a standard OW course was followed, but rather a provisional permit to dive under the direct guidance and supervision of a DM to no more than something like 40 -50 feet in benign conditions.

Courses done in resorts have to follow the same standards as courses taught elsewhere. Yes, there are places in resorts where standards are skipped, but that can happen anywhere. One of the worst cases of courses not meeting standards that I know of was in a course in a university, where the instructor has the leisure of lots of time and still falls short. (Yes, it was reported to the agency.)

 

[James79]

People vary in how they are able to learn. The fact that you, @mac64, can learn through a combination of written (and perhaps online) material, combined with practice and gradual expansion of boundaries, does not mean that all persons can do so.

As I read the OP, it didn't ever suggest that you shouldn't be allowed to have an instructor. So, to me, the salient question isn't whether everyone can get by with self study, but whether some people can. If we expect everyone to be able to test out before we'll entertain testing out as an option, then we also need to get rid of CLEP tests for college courses and GED testing.

Respectfully,

James

 

[2airishuman]

If enough water goes into the mask your going to take it of and look at it. I learnt that that when I was 10 dabbing for flounder. The first thing anyone would do with a leaking bottle is turn it off and check it. If a tap was leaking water all over the floor would you need an instructor to tell you to turn it off.

I would do the same. You're not a typical scuba student. I'm not a typical scuba student.

Why would we expect scuba courses to be designed for the 1% of divers who think the way people on SB think?