Liability of Agencies for their instructors??

[divingdayz]

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.

There was not much time spent in the pool. I asked this question. Also, the water temp was not an issue. It;s 28-29C at the moment.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

I don't perceive that a body of people expect training to be free. I think most people just want to get what they pay for and I think dissatisfied people amongst us stumble into one of two things.

Just because someone repeat something over and over and over and over and over and ... you get the idea, doesn't make it true.

“Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth”: one law of propaganda often attributed to Goebbels.

 

[The Chairman]

I feel we've drifted far from the OP.

Should dive certification agencies be held liable for the actions of their instructors?

As great as GUE may or may not be, they are not held liable for the actions of their instructors either. Neither should they be. The people who are attracted to GUE's curriculum are few and far between. Sure, marketing might be the problem, and we could use another Seahunt or the equivalent of Catniss' archery saving the day to propel people to go dive. Maybe we can get Caitlin Clark to cross over to Scuba? That'd be a hoot!

Unfortunately, this is just more distraction from the OP, though.

I used to work for Goodyear, first as a mechanic, and then as the Service Manager. As a corporate shop, we were a bit jealous of the franchises as they could get away with things that we couldn't. However, when one of their customers showed up at our shop to warranty their work, we politely, but firmly declined. While Goodyear warranted their tires, they did not warranty work done by their franchisees. Nor should they. Unless there was evidence of fraud, they didn't care. Nor should they. They could offer free oil changes with a set of tires. That was fine. They could even sell their tires at a loss. Goodyear didn't care. Just tell them how many more units you need?

Yeah, there are tons of problems with that analogy. Goodyear stands behind their tires, just as the agencies stand behind their learning materials. How they are mounted and balanced are beyond their control unless you go to a company owned store. There are no agency owned dive shops.

It's still caveat emptor, so don't forget to do your research. Part of that research is ScubaBoard. How can we make their search easier and more effective?

 

[boulderjohn]

Just because someone repeat something over and over and over and over and over and ... you get the idea, doesn't make it true.

“Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth”: one law of propaganda often attributed to Goebbels.

That is the risk writers run when they use hyperbole. The overwhelming percentage of the reading population understands it, but a small percentage cannot and think the writer is speaking literally..

 

[DanBMW]

Should dive certification agencies be held liable for the actions of their instructors?

A want to be diver starts looking around and sees ads that say something like " Learn to dive the <agency> way" They think that sounds great, I will go with <agency> to learn to dive. They go to the <agency> web site, find a dive shop that has a high star rating from the <agency> and say" That's for me, <agency> certified trainers and high star rating. What can go wrong?"

But as we all know, the <agency> is in the business of issuing certifications and selling learning packages, not in the business of monitoring the quality of their instructors. There are far too many instructors out there. One agency advertises that they have 160,000 certified dive professionals and issue 1,000,000 certifications a year. That is about 6 certifications per professional, no where near enough for an instructor to stay current on teaching methods and changing standards, let alone to provide sufficient revenue to cover <agency> fees, insurance etc. (They did not say if professional included DMs nor what levels of certifications were issued, a lot of difference between an OW or AOW certification and a no dive Nitrox certification in terms of instructor time and revenue.)


Personally I believe that agencies should have some responsibility for the quality of the instructors who issue the certifications on their behalf. I have seen far too many bad new divers, not bad because of inexperience but bad because they were just not taught correctly at the start.


This would be a major change for the agencies, fees would increase, as would the cost of instruction, the number of instructors would drop, and hopefully the quality of instruction would rise and instructors would be able to actually make a living instructing.

Please lets keep the discussion generic as to agency, Lets not bad mouth any specific agency as I believe they are all guilty of turning unsupervised new instructors loose on an unsuspecting public. Some examples will identify the agency to those in the know, but lets not name and shame.

But please feel free to name any agency that does do a good job of monitoring the quality of instruction done in their name and for which they collect fees.

It's simply individual Instructor liability, not the agency, unless they are working for a legitimate business like a SCUBA store. Then it's up to the courts and possibly shared liability and who has the deepest pockets and Insurance. I have not read most of the previous comments.

 

[Outbound]

Should dive certification agencies be held liable for the actions of their instructors?...

But as we all know, the <agency> is in the business of issuing certifications and selling learning packages, not in the business of monitoring the quality of their instructors. There are far too many instructors out there....

Says who? These are two baseless assumptions you are making. The vast majority of dive shops/ops certainly do monitor the quality of their instructors. Just because there is a financial incentive to sell courses doesn't mean that there isn't also an incentive to keep those courses high quality. Would you prefer that courses be free? What would be the incentive to deliver quality instruction then?

On what do you base your second statement, that there are "far too many instructors out there?" Again, says who? What would be the perfect number of scuba instructors?

There is a set of intertwining and pervasive attitudes rampant on scubaboard that essentially claim that recreational scuba instruction is (almost) uniformly crap and that training agencies are responsible for that. The gist is that training is churning out dangerous divers who are bound to end up killing themselves at some point in the near future. If that is your belief, then please provide evidence of all these dangerous divers injuring or killing themselves. The DAN data that we have simply doesn't support this supposition.

The other thing I see a lot of is the belief that somehow training agencies (and PADI in particular) are simply out to make money. For some reason, capitalism is fine in every other aspect of our daily lives but it is considered terrible when it comes to scuba training. For those who support this idea, I propose that you become instructors and then conduct high-quality courses for free. Just because an organization, agency, shop, or individual charges a customer for something doesn't mean the product is junk or that the training will be subpar.

For those who tout the GUE approach as the best way of handling this supposed "situation," let's get real for a moment. Yes, GUE training is definitely high-quality. But if all the recreational training agencies held every instructor and student to the same standards we'd see the end of recreational scuba diving as a viable activity/sport. It would be an even more niche market than it already is. Many equipment manufacturers, dive shops, and dive ops would go out of business, as there wouldn't be a large enough base of rec divers to support the industry. And it probably wouldn't make much of a dent in the already small number of annual diving fatalities and injuries.

I'll always support discussions of making scuba training better and safer. And I'm not suggesting that there aren't bad instructors out there. But the training materials are very solid, and I reject the notion that there's a huge pool of terrible instructors out there churning out dangerous divers. If you believe this, then provide evidence of it.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

That is the risk writers run when they use hyperbole. The overwhelming percentage of the reading population understands it, but a small percentage cannot and think the writer is speaking literally..

Nah, it is the risk writers use with an agenda. The issue is value, and that is a discussion you wish to deflect from.

 

[NothingClever]

Should dive certification agencies be held liable for the actions of their instructors?

Personally I believe that agencies should have some responsibility for the quality of the instructors who issue the certifications on their behalf. I have seen far too many bad new divers, not bad because of inexperience but bad because they were just not taught correctly at the start.

I feel we've drifted far from the OP.

I think we're squarely on topic.

Before liability (a legal determination with consequence) there must first be a premise of accountability and that's where I think the discussion has drifted. I think that's entirely germane.

The Business of Diving Institute surveys from 2023 and 2024 are pretty clear in showing customers and instructors are dissatisfied with the state of affairs. Although PADI took a beating and the survey shows their instructors were inclined to point people to other organizations, this is bigger than PADI because other certifying organizations also clearly suffered in the surveys.

From Darcy's website and study:

"With these negative NPS scores and a consistently high drop-out rate (high attrition) among newly certified scuba divers, we are overdue to redesign the business model we use to introduce people to the underwater world."

Yet here we are on ScubaBoard saying, "It's OK" or "That's just the way it is." I'd characterize that as tacit approval of matters. All the wisdom and experience on ScubaBoard juxtaposed against the stark numbers in the BDI surveys and that's the best we can muster? If there's any drift, it's towards irrelevancy and lethargy.

It's still caveat emptor, so don't forget to do your research. Part of that research is ScubaBoard. How can we make their search easier and more effective?

ScubaBoard is grotesquely obese with well over 93 sub-forums.

RECOMMENDATION #1: Use artificial intelligence to haystack the observations and perceptions of members to coalesce annual trends. A casual search on ScubaBoard for something relatively simple results in too much conflicting information.

RECOMMENDATION #2: Make these trends readily available to members whether they're lurkers or sponsors.

These trends will either point to educational gaps that can be easily addressed or legitimate changes industry leaders need to make.

RECOMMENDATION #3: If the results indicate an educational gap, point to vetted threads or courses to get members healthy. I think @Akimbo has done yeoman's work in this area.

RECOMMENDATION #4: If the trends indicate a need for improvement that only industry leaders can change, deliver them in a professional manner to the RSTC/WRSTC each year with recommendations on how to get the industry healthy.

Whoever you select to deliver the results needs be someone who's as close to universally-approved as possible.

This stuff isn't hard. You just have to be in it to win it.

 

[The Chairman]

I think we're squarely on topic.

Before liability (a legal determination with consequence) there must first be a premise of accountability and that's where I think the discussion has drifted. I think that's entirely germane.

The Business of Diving Institute surveys from 2023 and 2024 are pretty clear in showing customers and instructors are dissatisfied with the state of affairs. Although PADI took a beating and the survey shows their instructors were inclined to point people to other organizations, this is bigger than PADI because other certifying organizations also clearly suffered in the surveys.

From Darcy's website and study:

"With these negative NPS scores and a consistently high drop-out rate (high attrition) among newly certified scuba divers, we are overdue to redesign the business model we use to introduce people to the underwater world."

Yet here we are on ScubaBoard saying, "It's OK" or "That's just the way it is." I'd characterize that as tacit approval of matters. All the wisdom and experience on ScubaBoard juxtaposed against the stark numbers in the BDI surveys and that's the best we can muster? If there's any drift, it's towards irrelevancy and lethargy.



ScubaBoard is grotesquely obese with well over 93 sub-forums.

RECOMMENDATION #1: Use artificial intelligence to haystack the observations and perceptions of members to coalesce annual trends. A casual search on ScubaBoard for something relatively simple results in too much conflicting information.

RECOMMENDATION #2: Make these trends readily available to members whether they're lurkers or sponsors.

These trends will either point to educational gaps that can be easily addressed or legitimate changes industry leaders need to make.

RECOMMENDATION #3: If the results indicate an educational gap, point to vetted threads or courses to get members healthy. I think @Akimbo has done yeoman's work in this area.

RECOMMENDATION #4: If the trends indicate a need for improvement that only industry leaders can change, deliver them in a professional manner to the RSTC/WRSTC each year with recommendations on how to get the industry healthy.

Whoever you select to deliver the results needs be someone who's as close to universally-approved as possible.

This stuff isn't hard. You just have to be in it to win it.

Sounds like a thread you should start with all of these recommendations included. I look forward to it.

 

[NothingClever]

Says who? These are two baseless assumptions you are making. The vast majority of dive shops/ops certainly do monitor the quality of their instructors. Just because there is a financial incentive to sell courses doesn't mean that there isn't also an incentive to keep those courses high quality. Would you prefer that courses be free? What would be the incentive to deliver quality instruction then?

On what do you base your second statement, that there are "far too many instructors out there?" Again, says who? What would be the perfect number of scuba instructors?

There is a set of intertwining and pervasive attitudes rampant on scubaboard that essentially claim that recreational scuba instruction is (almost) uniformly crap and that training agencies are responsible for that. The gist is that training is churning out dangerous divers who are bound to end up killing themselves at some point in the near future. If that is your belief, then please provide evidence of all these dangerous divers injuring or killing themselves. The DAN data that we have simply doesn't support this supposition.

The other thing I see a lot of is the belief that somehow training agencies (and PADI in particular) are simply out to make money. For some reason, capitalism is fine in every other aspect of our daily lives but it is considered terrible when it comes to scuba training. For those who support this idea, I propose that you become instructors and then conduct high-quality courses for free. Just because an organization, agency, shop, or individual charges a customer for something doesn't mean the product is junk or that the training will be subpar.

For those who tout the GUE approach as the best way of handling this supposed "situation," let's get real for a moment. Yes, GUE training is definitely high-quality. But if all the recreational training agencies held every instructor and student to the same standards we'd see the end of recreational scuba diving as a viable activity/sport. It would be an even more niche market than it already is. Many equipment manufacturers, dive shops, and dive ops would go out of business, as there wouldn't be a large enough base of rec divers to support the industry. And it probably wouldn't make much of a dent in the already small number of annual diving fatalities and injuries.

I'll always support discussions of making scuba training better and safer. And I'm not suggesting that there aren't bad instructors out there. But the training materials are very solid, and I reject the notion that there's a huge pool of terrible instructors out there churning out dangerous divers. If you believe this, then provide evidence of it.

I think the volume of complaints on ScubaBoard about entry level training is stacked against your dismissal.

I don't recall anyone on this thread making a single derogatory remark about training materials. There have been remarks in other threads that TDI and IANTD need to improve their content. The focus on this thread has been about the lopsided disconnect between corporation and instructor.

What are your thoughts on the results of the BDI surveys?

Is there nothing the certifying organizations should do?