NAUI versus PADI

[Diver0001]

As a PADI instructor I would like to comment.

To my way of seeing things PADI is essentially a couple of things:
1) a publishing company
2) a marketing company
3) a non-government regulatory authority with world wide approval

I will only address #1 in this post. If someone wants me to address the other two then let me know:

What the agency (PADI or whatever agency) publish are the course materials and their standard. Their business model does involve, to a large extent, certifying as many people as possible. The more certs they sell, the more money they make. It's simple arithmetic. Many people, and some on this thread as well, equate large volumes of sales to low quality. These things are not the same. Some people compare what PADI offers to McDonalds..... cheap, fast and crappy. This is an incorrect analogy for a couple of reasons

(a) CHEAP: PADI does not determine the price of a course, the shop does. The only thing PADI controls is the price of the materials and the administration costs. They LITERALLY don't care if you give away the course as a loss-leader or if you charge $1000 for the open water course. They get the same amount of money (for the books and administration costs) regardless of how much the LDS puts the course on the market for. If a course is CHEAP, therefore, this is a choice made by the LDS, not by the agency. In fact, the QUALITY of the MATERIALS PADI makes available to its instructors is simply outstanding; it is written well, it is didactically sound and proven, and instructors are VERY well supported by an agency that sincerely wants to make them successful. That quality is EXACTLY the same regardless of the price the LDS charges their customers. No matter what the price, you get the same book, and therefore EXACTLY the same quality from the agency..... and furthermore, no matter what the price the LDS charges, if an instructor calls them with a question they will get almost immediate help by an expert whose goal is to help them. PADI does not ask the instructor how much they charged the student for the course before they help you. They literally do-not-care

Ergo, CHEAP is not an agency goal, quality is. CHEAP is what the LDS does!

(b) FAST: PADI does not dictate how long the course needs to take. Its didactic system is "performance based" so if someone can finish the course in 10 hours, fine. If they need 20 hours, fine. If they need 100 hours, fine. If they never finish the course because they can't perform to the agency's standards, fine. PADI makes no judgement and has (nearly) no opinion about how long a course SHOULD take. In fact, they are very clear to their instructors that QUALITY is not the variable in scuba training, TIME is. This is inherent in the "performance based" approach. It's very difficult for the LDS to make a business model based on that because they often cannot tell a customer how long a course will take, and therefore how much it will cost, right out of the gate. The effect of this is that the LDS OFTEN uses optimistic scenario's and is not transparent with customers up front about the potential down side of this type of training. THAT... however... is NOT the agency's problem to manage. The agency does not micro manage individual shops..... therefore if a shop is offering a course in an unrealistic time frame then the SHOP is selling a fast course, not PADI. If students are rushed, then it's the SHOP doing that, not the agency. If things are being rattled off then the SHOP (or instructor) is doing that. If the student is getting "nickel and dimed" because the shop over sold and under delivered then the SHOP made that decision. The agency simply publishes a standard and some outstanding teaching materials and tells instructors how they can know if they did a 'good enough' job to be allowed to certify a student.

The LDS runs their OWN business. The agency does not do that.

Ergo, FAST is not an agency goal, quality is meant to be fixed. FAST is what the LDS does!

(c) CRAPPY: in this part there is some nuance. The agency VERY clearly defines the quality goals for instructors. In a performance based system this is the aspect of "Mastery". Mastery, in the PADI system means that every skill the student learns should be learned well enough that the student can perform the skill repeatedly, correctly and fluidly. This INCLUDES skills like neutral swimming. ALL skills are set to this bar. Why, then are "crappy" courses taking place? Who decides that it's ok to conduct a crappy course? All PADI instructors are trained to have the same goal in mind.... so what's happening? Is the agency failing in making the conditions clear enough? No. It couldn't be any clearer. Are the standards somehow lacking? No. The PADI standard differs from other agencies only in nuances and is, in fact, the standard that most other agencies have copied as a starting point. Are their instructors badly trained? ...... Maybe.... some of them.... but it's a small group..... So what is happening?

My feeling is that what happens is related to calibration drift and failures of QA.

Calibration drift is when, in a performance based system, the instructor starts to find things that are clearly NOT ok, acceptable. This drift can, by the way, go both ways and some instructors will find things that are clearly acceptable not OK. We usually worry more about the first group. In professional teaching settings, "re-calibration" is a regular process. Among scuba instructors it is not. Is this an agency failing? I would say, yes but I would also note that with the possible exception of GUE (which struggles with this even with their tiny size) NO agency in the world even attempts regular re-calibration training. This includes PADI. It's a problem, indeed, but not unique to PADI. PADI gets a lot of flack for it, however, because, put simply.... "tall trees catch a lot of wind".

To give a concrete example of calibration drift, if an instructor isn't doing a good job of teaching ... say... mask clearing and they have a lot of students who struggle with it, they may start to find it NORMAL that newbies struggle with mask clearing. The standard hasn't changed. Every student must be able to clear their mask repeatedly, correctly and fluidly. Same goes for removing the mask and removing the mask and swimming. However, our instructor in this example may start to think that the agency has set the bar too high because their students can't get to this point very easily and may start to "go easy" on his/her students.... over time this pattern of "going easy" on the student starts to become a new norm for this particular instructor, namely, "not repeatable, not correct or not fluid".

Has the standard changed? No.

Has the agency's attention to quality changed? No.

His THIS INSTRUCTOR changed? Yes. He/she has experienced calibration drift and now finds things that are clearly NOT ok, acceptable.

Re: QA: Regarding QA. PADI is, I believe, one of the very few agencies with a functioning QA system. Their QA system is actually very good in one sense. It's rational, it's well thought out, it's active and it literally investigates every QA complaint made to the agency. Mitigation differs and can include "no action" if the complaint is unfounded to "re-calibration" of the instructor if there has been considerable drift to banning the instructor in extreme cases. PADI investigates a LOT of QA complaints. However, for obvious reasons they keep it low key. Clearly, if you're almost the only kid on the block doing anything at all about QA then publishing all of your QA data in the public domain would make it look like you have an abnormally large number of complaints. It's not necessarily a complete picture, however, because the next agency probably doesn't have much of a QA system (if at all) and probably publishes next to no data.

This culture of "anti-transparency" permeates the industry. PADI is part of that but at the same time it's one of the few agencies that even attempts to do anything about it.

That said, what does PADI do to proactively identify the "de-calibrated" instructor we were talking about before? In my exchanges with the European QA director, I would say "quite a bit more than you know" but maybe not everything they could do. I think PADI's tolerance for standards deviations among instructors is too high. There are too many scuba instructors as it is so I see no reason why the agency needs to continue to tolerate the..... er..... "bozos", to borrow a term from Steve Jobs. If the job were mine I would be looking to "cull" the bozos to a much higher bar and to be more transparent about it, thereby improving the agency's image of quality commitment in the public domain over time.

PADI has a reputation for tolerating "crappy" training, and while some PADI instructors are truly crappy (and indeed tolerated), most are not and some are highly competent and deliver exceptional quality.... ALL of this happens within the boundaries of the very same standard.... my (perhaps overly critical) brain says that this shouldn't be allowed and the truly crappy should be culled..... That would be my advice to the QA director, if I were asked to give advice.

R..​

 

[MichaelMc]

@Diver0001, I had a chance to read the PADI 2017 Instructor Manual (rev 12/16), and they emphasize neutral training more. Including, in OW confined water dive 5, it seems to ask for BC remove/replace mid water with minimal assistance, at least 'without losing control of buoyancy, body position and depth.' To that repeatedly, correctly and fluidly standard you mention. I would read that as mid water? As doing it negative, kneeling, and on the bottom would seem to leave little to lose... Is that an accurate reading?

On the initial QA front, there had been posts of Instructor training in the past being tested while negative and kneeling, does that seem to be changing?

Thanks. Not interested in an agency fight, but rather overall good standards, and its reflection in training.

Edit:
In dive 2 they've adjusted weights and separately done an eye level buoyancy check with no or minimal air in BC (leaving aside if that is the right check.).
In dive 4 they've:
- Adjusted for trim, for a normal swimming position. I'm assuming normal means horizontal.
- Orally hover for 1 minute without kicking or sculling. (reasonably comfortable, fluid, repeatable)
In dive 5:
- Practice previous skills with emphasis on neutral buoyancy, hovering, swimming.
- Make efforts to avoid contact with a sensitive bottom.
- The BC remove/replace is separate from a weight system remove/replace.
- The weight system remove/replace has the same control of buoyancy, body position, and depth, but, if done with weight belt and weight integrated BC, lists doing it on the bottom. Maybe because you then have a weight belt and two BC weight pockets to juggle?
For the BC remove/replace, depending on suit and weight distribution, you are at risk of becoming a balloon tethered to a heavy BC. That seems an object lesson that some weight on you and not just your BC is helpful. Once you fix that with a weight belt, doing it planted on the bottom seems not very interesting, given the earlier efforts at mid water control. Buoyancy (negative) and depth (bottom) seem to need no control, and there is no description that it should be done on the bottom, like one case for the weight system remove/replace.
Does this leave the BC remove/replace to be done mid water? (which I support as a useful step in skill development.)

(Mods, I thought to move this side elaboration to QA for Agencies but Diver0001 replied before I made the move, feel free to move it there.)

 

[Diver0001]

@Diver0001, I had a chance to read the PADI 2017 Instructor Manual (rev 12/16), and they emphasize neutral training more. Including, in OW confined water dive 5, it seems to ask for BC remove/replace mid water with minimal assistance, at least 'without losing control of buoyancy, body position and depth.' To that repeatedly, correctly and fluidly standard you mention. I would read that as mid water? As doing it negative, kneeling, and on the bottom would seem to leave little to lose... Is that an accurate reading?

The way I see it, yes. I also teach it while hovering. The complications of doing this skill while hovering are minimal and I actually find it easier to do, and to teach, while hovering. Obviously the prerequisite is that the student can already hover for extended periods of time. This requires consistency and attention for buoyancy control from the very beginning or the student will not be able to hover well enough in mod-5 to perform this skill as the standard intends it. If you have a student in that position then I would see a fin pivot as being "neutrally buoyant" and the wording of the standard suggests to me that they would find it acceptable if the student did it from a fin pivot as well.

kneeling, however? no.

On the initial QA front, there had been posts of Instructor training in the past being tested while negative and kneeling, does that seem to be changing?

I don't know and I have very little to go on here. I teach almost exclusively OW courses. This is a conscious choice I made because that's where I feel I have the most to offer. I only see IDC's being done from a distance and only from one CD but from what I see and what I see from newly certified instructors, I think PADI is well behind on this transition. A much more robust dialogue between IE's and CD's may be required than would appear to be happening but I can only judge that based on what I see from newly certified instructors.

Does this leave the BC remove/replace to be done mid water? (which I support as a useful step in skill development.)

I do the weights and the BCD remove/replace in mid water in module 5. You are correct to point out that in order to do this the student can't be using integrated weights. I cover this complication in detail during the debriefing.

as a side-bar to this, during our technical training (IANTD) you have to do a full set R&R in open water. Many technical configurations are a bit of a reverse "basket and blimp" set up whereby the set is very negative and the diver holds it up by being positive. During this skill I saw some pretty interesting approaches to dealing with it. One approach, which is what I used after seeing someone else do it, was to remove the set and then "bear hug" it. This put the set under the diver but by keeping it close the whole system is still neutrally buoyant. Getting back into it was a question of getting the arms through the loops and the rolling in to it in order to get the set back on top again asap.

I suppose something to this effect would work with a jacket style BCD if the diver were using integrated weights. I have to admit, however, that I've never tried it to be sure.

R..

 

[MichaelMc]

Thanks. For the other skills -- like air share and mask/reg clears -- it does not say to be neutral when you first do them. But in module 5 you must respond to several of them correctly, and separately are to be emphasizing being neutral, hovering, and making effort to avoid contact with the sensitive bottom. Which suggests those skills be done neutral in module 5. It reads well, hopefully people will move toward it.

I like the notion as a defacto world wide regulatory authority, given some good standards.

(Edit: Mods, if the above are the clear intents of the standard, leaving it in New Divers might be helpful, to inform those new divers.)

 

[Diver0001]

Thanks. For the other skills -- like air share and mask/reg clears -- it does not say to be neutral when you first do them. But in module 5 you must respond to several of them correctly, and separately are to be emphasizing being neutral, hovering, and making effort to avoid contact with the sensitive bottom. Which suggests those skills be done neutral in module 5. It reads well, hopefully people will move toward it.

I like the notion as a defacto world wide regulatory authority, given some good standards.

What's good to keep in mind is that learning to dive is a process. The END result matters. On the way to that end result there are multiple ways to "skin the cat".

The transition to neutral teaching will take a while. There are still a lot of instructors in the system who don't have a good grasp of how to go about teaching neutrally buoyant and aren't overly open to learning it. Letting go of the addiction to the bottom involves a real paradigm shift and a learning curve on the part of the instructor. Some people won't see the need for it. Some may even actively resist it, seeing people who are really taking the new standard to heart somewhat as loose cannons or even heretics.

I think many instructors might not even know it's happening. The number of instructors online is very small relative to the entire population and if someone is working in an isolated context they might not even be aware that things are changing.

Hopefully as time goes by and these people leave the system more room will be open for people who are making the paradigm shift. My hope is on the younger instructors, who are more likely to look for tips online and may have been taught with more awareness and attention to buoyancy control than their predecessors.

R..

 

[Scuba Scott]

I think many instructors might not even know it's happening. The number of instructors online is very small relative to the entire population and if someone is working in an isolated context they might not even be aware...

Every active PADI instructor and DM received the training update in Undersea Journal this year that states we are to start teaching neutral. Updates are required reading. I was told by a CD it was coming months before I read it so I know it was separately community to CDs.

 

[Diver0001]

Every active PADI instructor and DM received the training update in Undersea Journal this year that states we are to start teaching neutral. Updates are required reading. I was told by a CD it was coming months before I read it so I know it was separately community to CDs.

I understand that. It does not, however, mean that everyone does it diligently.

R..

 

[Scuba Scott]

@Diver0001 I don't doubt someone will claim they didn't know. They just don't have an excuse for not knowing. Well. .. their excuse would be they didn't do what they were required to do.

 

[Sevenrider860]

Every active PADI instructor and DM received the training update in Undersea Journal this year that states we are to start teaching neutral. Updates are required reading. I was told by a CD it was coming months before I read it so I know it was separately community to CDs.

I am curious which Undersea Journal training update that was released this year states that teaching neutral is required.

 

[Scuba Scott]

I am curious which Undersea Journal training update that was released this year states that teaching neutral is required.

Not required yet but soon to be and strongly recommended now.
I can't look it up right now but I believe it was the same one that discussed the weight drop requirement and suggested having your DM catch the weights.

I will admit when I read something I agree with is recommended I sometimes interpret that as a requirement.