Liability of Agencies for their instructors??

[Rickk]

Some agencies, PADI included, survey a high percentage of the students when they are done with a course. The survey asks them specific things about the course in an attempt to see that standards in the course were met. If the survey indicates a problem, an investigation begins. When I was still a DM assisting classes, the instructor I was assisting was investigated because a student survey included one student who misremembered the course and said he had not used an ascent line when conducting the CESA.

Every quarter, the PADI professional journal lists the names of the professionals who were expelled for serious issues during that quarter.

I have around 18 different certifications, never been surveyed. Never heard of anyone being surveyed until now.

I have sent emails pointing out factual errors in the course content, with link to back up my claims and have never even received a reply.

Interestingly enough, it was the same error in two different courses from two different agencies. It was not an error that would put a diver at risk, but one very obvious to anyone with any experience in that area. Made me really investigate a lot of other content that was in these courses.

PADI is one I have several certifications from with no surveys, the two with the factual errors are also in the top five agencies in terms of certifications issued.

There have been many OW courses on dive boats I have been with, many dives and many instructors where the students had to do a CESA and never seen an assent line used.

How many instructors are censured each quarter?

 

[Rickk]

......

Consequently, all liability waivers now specify that the professional in the activity is not a agent of whatever agency is involved. That has not stopped the practice of including the agency in the lawsuit whenever something goes wrong.

....

Can the agency really claim that an instructor, who on behalf of the agency authorizes the issuing of a a certification stating that the student has passed all required course material and is therefore certified to some level of diving, is not acting as an agent of the agency?


I am not talking about the agencies being liable for the actions of their professionals doing non instructing duties, but the agencies should be liable for the actions of their instructors while conducting a course.

If you are going to learn how to dive the agency way, ten the agency should be liable for your safety while under the care of an instructor certified by them to ensure that the agency way is being taught and that the student is safe during the instruction.

This liability should extend even after the student is finished the course if the accident is due to a deficiency in training. ( I know difficult to prove or disprove.)

 

[TravisD]

I saw one new OW diver today who completed his OW course last week in a different location. His complete dive time for his course was less than 80 min(OW1- 17 min, OW2- 17M, OW3- 23, OW4- 20min). Obviously, this is not very good and comes down to the insturctor. The agency was not one of the so-called 'big ones'.

I'd be curious to know how much time the student spent in the pool beforehand, and if there were any extenuating circumstances leading to those bare-minimum OW dives? Rockstar who spent 6 evenings in the pool who got in, got down, did the skills, and showed proficiency but did short dives because the water was borderline uncomfortable in the shop's 7mm rental suit is a different thing than a weekend-wonder who barely did skills to standards and cut every dive short because of near panic.

Heck, sometimes we're certifying students who already have more dives that we do, but are doing the course again because they've been out of the water a while, or are coming from a commercial or military background.

It shouldn't be the norm, or even common, but it doesn't mean that there aren't circumstances where it's acceptable.

 

[boulderjohn]

The primary culprit in poor instruction is the dive operation that hires the instructor. That dive operation sets the conditions of employment, telling their employees when they work, how long they work, and how they work. They set the price of a course. They identify how many assistants (if any) work with a large class.

The Director of Instruction where I worked told me "Instructors are a dime a dozen." An instructor comes by about every other week looking for work. Any instructor who does not like the way a shop works can be replaced in a heartbeat. It is easy to say the instructor should take the high road and refuse to work under substandard conditions, but that is not an easy decision if your livelihood depends upon holding that job.

The list of expelled instructors is dominated by Asians, and the reason for that was explained to me by someone from that area. Shops there rarely affiliate with an agency, so agencies have no power over them whatsoever. The shops hire instructors and tell them they must work under conditions that violate standards. When something goes wrong, the shop says it was all the instructors fault, and the instructor takes the blame. The only thing the agency can do is expel the instructor. The shop hires another one and goes on as usual. Those conditions are worse in Asia, but they exist to some degree everywhere.

 

[boulderjohn]

Let's say you are a dive shop owner and you are affiliated with the {whatever} agency. You are trying to get by financially, and you believe you have to cut some corners in order to survive. Someone from {whatever} agency learns you are cutting corners and tells you to cut it out to maintain your affiliation. You realize you have three choices:

1. Do what you are told you must do, maintain your affiliation, and lose money.
2. Switch to a different agency, some of whom are very, very eager to expand and will not be so picky.
3. Go unaffiliated and offer instruction from several agencies, depending upon the instructors you hire.

What's your choice?

 

[tursiops]

I have around 18 different certifications, never been surveyed. Never heard of anyone being surveyed until now.

I have sent emails pointing out factual errors in the course content, with link to back up my claims and have never even received a reply.

Interestingly enough, it was the same error in two different courses from two different agencies. It was not an error that would put a diver at risk, but one very obvious to anyone with any experience in that area. Made me really investigate a lot of other content that was in these courses.

PADI is one I have several certifications from with no surveys, the two with the factual errors are also in the top five agencies in terms of certifications issued.

There have been many OW courses on dive boats I have been with, many dives and many instructors where the students had to do a CESA and never seen an assent line used.

How many instructors are censured each quarter?

I'm sure that your personal experiences can readily be generalized to everyone. That does not mean the generalizations are accurate. I've been surveyed, so have some of my students. I've had emails to PADI be answered. So?

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

It sounds like it’s just all about the money.

The agency has figured out through a history of multiple lawsuits the fine art of deflection, but continues to make money in registration fees.
The dive shop has figured out how to shave as much labor/time off instruction as possible to be profitable.
The disposable part that wears out and gets replaced is the instructor.
The aim is to fill cattle boats, resorts, sell trips and tons of expensive gear, and somehow get more and more people to sign up to feed the machine.
Then when something goes wrong everybody lawyers up and the sh_t rolls down right onto the instructor.
Then everyone wonders why there is a shortage of instructors now?
I could have been an instructor 20 times over if I wanted. But seeing what they have to go through and how they get compensated there no F-ing way I would do that job, I couldn’t do that job, there’s only so much time in a day to make what needs to be made to survive, especially in my area.

Does this sound about right?

 

[The Chairman]

It sounds like it’s just all about the money.

You seem to think that this is a bad idea. Almost everything around us is just all about the money. If people won't pay for it, it will cease to exist. It's my opinion that most dive instructors do it more as a hobby, than a living. Erroneously, we don't think people will pay more for instruction, so we sell our services at a very, very low price. We can get away with it, because we have other income. This causes dive businesses to try to match us. They have to make a profit, so they have to cut as many corners as they can without killing anyone.

Oh the horrors!

Meh, caveat emptor. Unfortunately, they usually aren't.

To stay on topic, I can't understand why any agency should be held responsible for business decisions made by any other business.

To wander from the topic, instructors are their own worst enemy.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

You seem to think that this is a bad idea. Almost everything around us is just all about the money. If people won't pay for it, it will cease to exist. It's my opinion that most dive instructors do it more as a hobby, than a living. Erroneously, we don't think people will pay more for instruction, so we sell our services at a very, very low price. We can get away with it, because we have other income. This causes dive businesses to try to match us. They have to make a profit, so they have to cut as many corners as they can without killing anyone.

Oh the horrors!

Meh, caveat emptor. Unfortunately, they usually aren't.

To stay on topic, I can't understand why any agency should be held responsible for business decisions made by any other business.

To wander from the topic, instructors are their own worst enemy.

I don’t think it’s a bad idea at all, I own a business and know all about “the money”. But there has to be a balance between ‘the money’ and the value. There’s also a responsibility to do the right thing.

Back on topic.
The agency that writes the training rules but has no direct control over the practitioners that apply the training/rules can’t be held liable if the certifying agency is not directly involved in the training or application, unless there is a fatal flaw in any of the outlined course materials that were followed to the letter by the practitioners, which the certifying agencies have been very careful not to have.
If the course materials have been deviated from in whole or in part then the practitioner is wholly liable for any damage cause by the deviation or omission from the written standard.
Pretty simple.

 

[boulderjohn]

If the course materials have been deviated from in whole or in part

My background is public education, and I have spent a fair amount of time studying educational research. Here is one example.

About a half century ago researcher John Goodlad decided to pile on to previous (highly flawed) research with the goal of comparing the quality of different educational programs. Previous (highly flawed) studies had done the comparisons by comparing the total results of School A against School B, etc. Those (highly flawed) studies had concluded that the programs didn't make any difference--student achievement depended upon the quality of the student attending the school. Schools with students from wealthier and more highly educated parents did better using the same educational program as schools with more disadvantaged students.

Goodlad went a step beyond those other studies by sending researchers into the classroom to observe the teachers. He discovered that once the door of the classroom was closed, teachers generally ignored the curricular approach they were supposed to be using and did whatever they wanted. He couldn't study the effectiveness of the programs because they really weren't being implemented. That was what he found when he looked at teachers working in an environment where administrators were supposedly watching over their work to make sure they were teaching in an approved manner.

So why were the other studies highly flawed? Because they made the assumption that Goodlad found to be false. They assumed all teachers were equally teaching the same same program and were equally effective in doing so. Later studies have shown that the opposite is true. Individual teachers teaching the same level of students in adjoining classrooms have dramatically different results.

It seems its all about the individual instructor.