PADI - Concerns about students skills.

[boulderjohn]

I think you have chosen a bad example as 47m is past the recreational diving limit of 40m....I can totally understand why an insurance company might balk at picking up the tab for someone's negligence of exceeding a fairly hard depth standard such as 40m...yes I know that BSAC and CMAS, and perhaps a couple of other training organizations specify a deeper depth limit but they also tend to include decompression procedures in their training regime for recreational diving, which the big 3 (PADI, NAUI, SSI) does not.

Their insurance turned them down for exceeding 60ft.

Let's out these together and consider.

First, note that different agencies have different policies and teachings, but a dive operation has customers from a variety of agencies.

A dive operation that does not want to be sued in the event of a dive accident needs to follow defensible policies. A defensible policy will need to be objective; otherwise, the employee who made a bad decision to allow a certain diver to do a dive could put the company at risk. A nice objective standard is to require a certain certification level (like AOW) to do a deeper dive. It will be very easy for a dive operation to require such a certification for dives deeper than a specific level like 60 feet. That way there is no argument. If the diver has AOW certification, then it is not the dive operation's fault when it turned out he did not have the skill required for the dive. It could be the dive operation's fault if an employee listened to the diver's description of his or her skills or looked at a logbook and decided that the diver was good enough to do the advanced dive.

The dive operation must then follow its own policies. In the Tina Watson case in Australia, the dive operator was fined in her death because it did not follow its own policy of having a required checkout dive--there was no law requiring it. I once watched as a dive operator explained to a diver why they could not let him do the scheduled dive. The diver only had an OW card, and the dive required AOW. The diver explained that he was really a DM, but he was one of those people who only show a minimal certification card under the inexplicable belief that it somehow benefits them. Unfortunately for him, the Internet was down, so his true certification could not be confirmed. The employee said he was absolutely not allowed to make an exception, so the guy could only do the dive by buddying up with one of the shop's DMs.

 

[Zef]

Let's out these together and consider.

First, note that different agencies have different policies and teachings, but a dive operation has customers from a variety of agencies.

A dive operation that does not want to be sued in the event of a dive accident needs to follow defensible policies. A defensible policy will need to be objective; otherwise, the employee who made a bad decision to allow a certain diver to do a dive could put the company at risk. A nice objective standard is to require a certain certification level (like AOW) to do a deeper dive. It will be very easy for a dive operation to require such a certification for dives deeper than a specific level like 60 feet. That way there is no argument. If the diver has AOW certification, then it is not the dive operation's fault when it turned out he did not have the skill required for the dive. It could be the dive operation's fault if an employee listened to the diver's description of his or her skills or looked at a logbook and decided that the diver was good enough to do the advanced dive.

The dive operation must then follow its own policies. In the Tina Watson case in Australia, the dive operator was fined in her death because it did not follow its own policy of having a required checkout dive--there was no law requiring it. I once watched as a dive operator explained to a diver why they could not let him do the scheduled dive. The diver only had an OW card, and the dive required AOW. The diver explained that he was really a DM, but he was one of those people who only show a minimal certification card under the inexplicable belief that it somehow benefits them. Unfortunately for him, the Internet was down, so his true certification could not be confirmed. The employee said he was absolutely not allowed to make an exception, so the guy could only do the dive by buddying up with one of the shop's DMs.

I don't feel outed...I think your post articulates my thoughts/sentiments much better than I have been able to. Thanks.

-Z

 

[yle]

So back to my question....when did all the hubris about depth limit become an issue that it is stressed in open water classes the way it currently seems to be?

-Z

Sometime in the past 25 years (I'm not sure exactly when...) the folks at PADI were looking that the numbers and realizing that they needed a way to include more people in diving (i.e. they were looking for revenue growth.) They identified the tedious math portion of the OW class, the one when students would do a lot of NDL calculations using tables, as the biggest bottleneck, so they figured they would find a way to remove it.

This coincided with the rise in popularity of dive computers. And so the OW course "evolved": since dives shallower than 60 feet will nearly always be limited by air consumption (instead of NDL... especially for newer divers), the simplest way to make the OW course more accessible was:

1. Eliminate the math part by not requiring students to learn tables and do the corresponding calculations.
2. Keep everything shallower than 60 feet, and just tell students they're not allowed to go deeper.
3. Also tell students to just get a computer and make sure they know how to use it.

Voila! The OW course just became much simpler, the agency was covered because the divers were learning what they needed for dives shallower than 60 feet, and the divers were happier (well, some of them...) because they didn't have to do any math or bother learning the "hard part" of the course.

And here we are today. And why we have OW divers that want to dive deeper than 60 feet, but have no idea what NDL is or what their computer is doing for them (I actually just met one of these OW divers a couple weeks ago, planning to dive to 100 feet with their computer, and had no idea what an NDL is, or what their computer was for. Because their OW course was exactly as I described above.)

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

@yle

What's your source on this?

 

[boulderjohn]

Sometime in the past 25 years (I'm not sure exactly when...) the folks at PADI were looking that the numbers and realizing that they needed a way to include more people in diving (i.e. they were looking for revenue growth.) They identified the tedious math portion of the OW class, the one when students would do a lot of NDL calculations using tables, as the biggest bottleneck, so they figured they would find a way to remove it.

This coincided with the rise in popularity of dive computers. And so the OW course "evolved": since dives shallower than 60 feet will nearly always be limited by air consumption (instead of NDL... especially for newer divers), the simplest way to make the OW course more accessible was:

1. Eliminate the math part by not requiring students to learn tables and do the corresponding calculations.
2. Keep everything shallower than 60 feet, and just tell students they're not allowed to go deeper.
3. Also tell students to just get a computer and make sure they know how to use it.

Voila! The OW course just became much simpler, the agency was covered because the divers were learning what they needed for dives shallower than 60 feet, and the divers were happier (well, some of them...) because they didn't have to do any math or bother learning the "hard part" of the course.

And here we are today. And why we have OW divers that want to dive deeper than 60 feet, but have no idea what NDL is or what their computer is doing for them (I actually just met one of these OW divers a couple weeks ago, planning to dive to 100 feet with their computer, and had no idea what an NDL is, or what their computer was for. Because their OW course was exactly as I described above.)

Wow! Quite an accusation disparaging your own agency, and a standards violation at that!

Do you have any evidence that any of that thinking was part of PADI's strategy rather than what would be obvious? (Nobody was using tables anymore and computers were the norm, so it would be wise to teach what people are using rather than what they are not using.)

What changed during that time to make 60 feet an emphasis? I taught the table version of the course for a decade before I even saw the computer version, and I don't remember any difference in the teaching of depths. Please be specific on what PADI did to make the change.

 

[tursiops]

Sometime in the past 25 years (I'm not sure exactly when...) the folks at PADI were looking that the numbers and realizing that they needed a way to include more people in diving (i.e. they were looking for revenue growth.) They identified the tedious math portion of the OW class, the one when students would do a lot of NDL calculations using tables, as the biggest bottleneck, so they figured they would find a way to remove it.

This coincided with the rise in popularity of dive computers. And so the OW course "evolved": since dives shallower than 60 feet will nearly always be limited by air consumption (instead of NDL... especially for newer divers), the simplest way to make the OW course more accessible was:

1. Eliminate the math part by not requiring students to learn tables and do the corresponding calculations.
2. Keep everything shallower than 60 feet, and just tell students they're not allowed to go deeper.
3. Also tell students to just get a computer and make sure they know how to use it.

Voila! The OW course just became much simpler, the agency was covered because the divers were learning what they needed for dives shallower than 60 feet, and the divers were happier (well, some of them...) because they didn't have to do any math or bother learning the "hard part" of the course.

And here we are today. And why we have OW divers that want to dive deeper than 60 feet, but have no idea what NDL is or what their computer is doing for them (I actually just met one of these OW divers a couple weeks ago, planning to dive to 100 feet with their computer, and had no idea what an NDL is, or what their computer was for. Because their OW course was exactly as I described above.)

I gently suggest you may be inventing some history here.

 

[yle]

I gently suggest you may be inventing some history here.

Oh certainly... my post was mostly speculation, filling in the gaps. And the gaps were pretty big.

I guess it's shocking to suggest that PADI is interested in revenue growth, and that the general public is math phobic. Or that the rise in popularity in dive computers allowed cert agencies to justify eliminating teaching tables and NDL calculations from the OW course.

I guess my mistake was assuming these were obvious. For that, I apologize.

Wow! Quite an accusation disparaging your own agency, and a standards violation at that!

There's no "accusation" in my post. There's speculation, sure... but nowhere in my post did I suggest there was wrongdoing. I suggested the OW course "evolved" based on decisions that were motivated by making it more attractive to more people. For scuba instruction, that has always meant "lowering the barrier to entry", but with corresponding limitations for the entrants.

Which part is "disparaging"? The part where I suggested that NDL calculations were eliminated as a requirement for the OW course because more people would be likely to take the course if they didn't have to do math? Or that the rise in popularity of dive computers allowed for PADI (and other agencies) to justify the elimination of "teaching tables"? There's nothing "disparaging" about that... it's a simple fact.

Or was it the suggestion that PADI is interested in revenue growth? Hold on a second, I'm going to now disparage every company in the world. You might want to sit down for this, because apparently it will come as a shock: every company in the world is interested in revenue growth.

Seriously... tell me which statement I made qualifies as "disparaging."

 

[yle]

(Nobody was using tables anymore and computers were the norm, so it would be wise to teach what people are using rather than what they are not using.)

The boldfaced part of your statement... and you're disparaging all the divers that still use tables. And now I'm just as offended as you are.

 

[yle]

@yle

What's your source on this?

Part observation, part speculation.

Observation part:

1. DIve computers have become more popular in the past 25 years (I don't have hard data on this... just my observation.)
2. OW course did shift from "you need to learn how to calculate NDLs using tables" to "just make sure you know how to use your computer". I observed this shift. I still have a copy of PADI's "How to Use a Computer" that was included with the OW course materials when the shift was made.
3. General public is math phobic. This is an observation I've made long before I started diving and it has been pretty consistent.
4. PADI has an interest in attracting more people to diving. This is just an observation, but was reinforced by all my PADI courses, especially the IDC.
5. Dives shallower than 60 feet are overwhelmingly more likely to end due to air consumption than by reaching NDL. This is a simple observation made by looking at a dive table.

Speculation part: I knitted these observations together into a story. I wasn't accusing anyone of a crime or even of doing anything immoral. I was simply making observations and connecting them. But, as with so much in our modern society, some people look for any reason to be offended (not you... someone else.)

 

[boulderjohn]

Which part is "disparaging"?

Let's start with where you flat out stated--with no indication of speculation--that the entire motivation for creating a computer version of the course in addition to the table version was to make the course easier and more profitable, with no regard to adjusting to the realities of the changing world of scuba. then we will move to the next whopper, that somehow at the same time they decided diving shallower than 60 feet also made things easier, with no indication whatsoever what that has to do with it.

The boldfaced part of your statement... and you're disparaging all the divers that still use tables. And now I'm just as offended as you are.

Try to follow this. The difference is that the lack of table usage and the ubiquity of computers was openly cited by PADI as the reason for the change when they created the computer version of the course. It is also consistent with observations--as I have said many times, I tried and failed to use tables on my first dive trip after certification, nearly a quarter century ago, after which I bought a computer. It remains the only time I have ever seen anyone attempt to use tables outside of training in all those years. Thus, my statement was merely an observation of fact. Why noting that tables are rarely used and computers are commonplace would disparage someone who is in that minority that uses tables a complete mystery to me.