SDI vs PADI

[Walter]

I was talking about the diving population

In that case, you're operating under a false impression. You seem to believe that if all agencies had high standards, people wouldn't learn to dive. They would.

what they teach that is in any way different from those agencies which actually have a market presence and are readily available to the greatest percentage of the public is immaterial to recreational diving.

I believe you are mistaken. Skills left out by many agencies are essential to produce competent, confident divers who are not likely to panic when something goes wrong.

The second issue is which agencies permit an instructor to subscribe, personally, to a significantly higher standard. NAUI, for example, has a minimum standard only that must be met, there is no restriction on what may be added to the course, with some minor exceptions covering items like ascents.

SEI also encourages instructors to add to classes and also allows instructors to make those additions requirements.

In essence, they include skills that the first group includes in the optional follow-up classes.

Several of those skills are never included in future classes.

If we really want to extend the idea that the readily available agencies are insufficient because other agencies have harsher standards, shouldn't we condemn all agencies except which ever organization (be it professional or non) has the absolutely most stringent and difficult standards?

If all agencies had the same standards and those standards were idential to those of one of the lower end agencies (with regard to standards), they would still be inadequate. It's not a comparison, standards are either adequate or inadequate on their own.

You also seem to think high standards equate with difficult. That isn't the case. A class following high standards is usually easier for the student, not more difficult.

The standards don't dictate quick courses breezing through material to toss students into the water as quickly as possible at a bargain price -- the market for the recreational diver does.

True, but the standards of most don't forbid them either. SEI's standards do forbid this practice. If one cannot follow the minimum standards of an agency and have a good class as a result, the standards are inadequate.

Which is why instructors are more important than agencies when talking about quality of instruction received by any individual person.

Ah, but they aren't in most cases. I do agree instructors can make a big difference, but they rarely do. Many instructors simply follow the cards they bought from their agency and plug in a DVD. The biggest difference between different classes is almost always the agency.

PADI vs. SDI vs NAUI vs whatever isn't an issue of one set of standards being better than another as the standards are essentially identical.

You obviously have not read SEI standards. There are big differences between standards. How many different sets of standards have you read?

I'm not sure that we don't get what is advertised. My local PADI shop, for example, advertises that OW training will teach a person to: Plan, conduct and log open water no stop (no decompression) dives when equipped properly and accompanied by a buddy in conditions which you have training and or experience.

And your local shop may very well do just that, but many don't and they fall short of that bar without violating PADI standards.

It is not advertised that the person will be an experienced diver capable of handling any conditions and dealing with any potential situation with out even thinking twice about it.

Anyone who does advertise that is lying. No one can produce such results.

Well, when it comes to minimum standards quite a few are not (fully) independent of each other, which is why there are many reciprocal agreements of certification recognition between them.

What makes you think that? SDI and TDI are related, but most are independent of each other. The recognize each other's certifications so they can sell classes to folks with certifications from other agencies.

 

[Blackwood]

As far as "independent diver" part is concerned. Most of the recreational agencies teach a buddy system and discourage independent diving.

They discourage solo diving, not being independently competent.

I'm using the word to mean "doesn't require professional supervision."

But isn't the risk calculus exactly what tells us if a set of standards as implemented is sufficient?

Yes, but this particular risk is too much for me to swallow. Unfortunately, it takes dive experience to recognize the risk because it's concealed by the fancy words and descriptions of OW class.

Is there any objective evidence that scuba diving is more risky today than it was 10 or 20 or 30 years ago?

No clue, but what has that to do with anything?

Is there any objective evidence that scuba divers trained under one set of standards are at greater risk than those trained under another set of standards when diving in recreational limits?

Everyone in the same water is at the same risk. The question is: how will they handle a bad situation?

 

[Kingpatzer]

In that case, you're operating under a false impression. You seem to believe that if all agencies had high standards, people wouldn't learn to dive. They would.

As cost and time are a significant part of the market drivers for this (or any activity) I see no reason to suppose that the number of people certified every year would stay the same or increase.

It may be that as a percentage of those certified more would be regular divers, as only those more interested in the hobby would pursue certification in the first place. It may also be that those who are certified are more likely to continue due to being more comfortable engaging in diving. But participation maintenance isn't what I'm talking about -- and I would guess you and I have a fair amount of agreement that people are more likely to continue an activity if they enjoy it more, and that they are more likely to an enjoy an activity the better prepared they are to engage in the activity in the first place.

I believe you are mistaken. Skills left out by many agencies are essential to produce competent, confident divers who are not likely to panic when something goes wrong.

Is there any evidence that the current training standards are producing a greater rate of such incidents as a percentage of the diving population as opposed to some previous, presumably more rigorous standard? My understanding is that half-way decent data doesn't exist prior to DAN starting to collect the numbers, and that even within that limited time-frame, the data is far from complete. However, within the data as it is, analysis on incident rates does not show increases of risk as standards have been relaxed.

SEI also encourages instructors to add to classes and also allows instructors to make those additions requirements.

Agencies which have virtually no market place penetration are not worth discussing in this context. NOLA divers are trained to a higher standard as well, but since the vast majority of prospective divers have no access to these agencies, their standards are immaterial to a discussion around the standards recreational divers as a population.

I've sent an e-mail to SEI asking for any information number of instructors (preferably by state) and number of students certified but have so far not received a response.

If all agencies had the same standards and those standards were idential to those of one of the lower end agencies (with regard to standards), they would still be inadequate. It's not a comparison, standards are either adequate or inadequate on their own.

Not true. Standards are set in relation to the risk of the activity. Standards, when met, impact risk. Standards raise or lower risk, but they are adequate or inadequate only in relationship to what someone subjectively (and somewhat arbitrarily) determines to be an acceptable risk level.

Is 1 incident exacerbated by inadequate training in 100,000 dives acceptable risk? Is 2? At what point is risk acceptable and is 1 less incident not acceptable?

You also seem to think high standards equate with difficult. That isn't the case. A class following high standards is usually easier for the student, not more difficult.

I equate expanded standards as increasing cost and time, and thus failing to meet market demands.

You obviously have not read SEI standards. There are big differences between standards. How many different sets of standards have you read?

No, I have not read SEI standards. The standards I know I've read are PADI, NAUI, SDI and NOLA. I in no way claim to be an expert in interpreting any of them.

Anyone who does advertise that is lying. No one can produce such results.

Precisely.

What makes you think that? SDI and TDI are related, but most are independent of each other. The recognize each other's certifications so they can sell classes to folks with certifications from other agencies.

I do not mean they are dependent in a business sense, but rather that they have a relationship wherein they agree with the standards of the various agencies.

No clue, but what has that to do with anything?

Everything. If there is not actually a problem, claiming there is one doesn't create a problem.

Everyone in the same water is at the same risk. The question is: how will they handle a bad situation?

The first statement is not true, as shown by the second. There are two types of risk. The inherent risk of being in an environment, and the inherent risk of a person engaging in that activity with a particular level of training.

If everyone was at the same risk, then no amount of training would be necessary for any diver -- after all, they'd have the same risk. But we know that is not the case, someone who is completely untrained is going to be much more likely to do something wrong and create an incident or exacerbate a minor problem into a major event.

The question of training standards is entirely about the second type of risk and something akin to consensus as to what is an acceptable risk level for recreational divers.

If there is no evidence that risk is increased by following PADI training over following SEI (to pick Walter's apparent favorite agency) then complaints that PADI's training standards are insufficient compared to SEI's is so much hot air.

 

[Blackwood]

There are two types of risk. The inherent risk of being in an environment, and the inherent risk of a person engaging in that activity with a particular level of training.

Risk (n): exposure to the chance of injury or loss

Everyone who chooses to dive is subject to the same hazards, the inability to breathe unassisted being the foremost consideration.

Training and experience dictate how someone will react to hazardous situations (loss of breathing gas, for example).

If everyone was at the same risk, then no amount of training would be necessary for any diver -- after all, they'd have the same risk.

If I follow your thought process, it's as if you are saying that risks can not be mitigated by training and experience. I disagree.

 

[Kingpatzer]

Risk (n): exposure to the chance of injury or loss

Everyone who chooses to dive is subject to the same hazards, the inability to breathe unassisted being the foremost consideration.

You don't really want to suggest that someone like Casey McKinlay is just as likely to experience an OOA situation as a newly minted OW diver do you?

Training and experience dictate how someone will react to hazardous situations (loss of breathing gas, for example).

I think most agencies train people to at least some degree on how to avoid running out of breathing gas in the first place. Training in that case is not about reaction but prevention.

When speaking about populations there are at least two types of risk. The first is exposure to the chance of injury or loss created by the environment itself. Everyone has, for example, the same risk of being caught in an unexpected strong current. That risk is shared regardless of the make up of the populations in question by virtue of being in an environment.

But the populations are also exposed to the chance of injury or loss created by the propensity for those populations to take various actions in said environment. A population trained to not hold their breath under water has a lower risk of being injured by holding their breath under water than a population which has not had that training. This is not mitigation, this is risk avoidance.

If I follow your thought process, it's as if you are saying that risks can not be mitigated by training and experience. I disagree.

Risk is avoided when the rate of realization of said risk is reduced. Risk is mitigated when the outcome of the risk being realized is made less severe. This is an important distinction.

Risks can both be avoided (risk reduced) and mitigated (outcomes made less severe) by training and experience.

Training standards are about both, of course, but are primarily concerned with risk reduction. I was far to careless in saying it is entirely about risk reduction.

If I have two populations, one trained to not touch things under water, and one not trained to not touch things under water, then I would expect that the population trained to not touch things would have a reduced rate of incidents related to touching things under water than the group which is not trained. The training has reduced risk.

If both populations are equally well trained as to what to do if one finds themselves injured and possibly envenomated underwater then in both populations the risk would be equally mitigated -- that is the severity of outcome when the risk is realized would be reduced equally in both populations.

Most of OW and AOW standards is about the first type of training -- reducing risk.

Without evidence that an agency has a higher rate of risk realization, or a worse record for mitigating outcomes of realized risk, then there is no objective basis for claiming that said agency's training standards are insufficient for the activity being discussed.

There are areas of diving where such evidence exists. It is very clear, for example, that OW divers attempting cave dives are at a much higher risk of suffering an incident than trained cave divers. There is very clear evidence that OW only trained divers are much more likely to fail to mitigate risk in many situations. But there is not clear evidence that one agency's divers are at a higher level of risk than another or that they fail to mitigate outcomes compared to another within recreational diving that I am aware of.

 

[Blackwood]

Without evidence that an agency has a higher rate of risk realization, or a worse record for mitigating outcomes of realized risk, then there is no objective basis for claiming that said agency's training standards are insufficient for the activity being discussed.

Agreed. It's - in my case anyway - a subjective distinction.

I know that I wasn't nearly as comfortable sharing gas when I graduated as I now feel is requisite, for example.

 

[Kingpatzer]

Feel the love

 

[Splash-X]

The high end is great, but the average diver is not interested in being a high end diver. The average diver is interested in spending a few hours under water during a vacation. Maybe they'll do it again once or twice in their life. That's it.

And you can read about these people in the Accidents and Incidents forum where they are injured or killed due to lack of training, poor skills, etc etc.

We call these type of people resort divers and these people don't care what agency they use other than what was close to the location they were staying and how nice the staff were.

 

[Thalassamania]

But that is an issue of instruction not of standards. The standards don't dictate quick courses breezing through material to toss students into the water as quickly as possible at a bargain price -- the market for the recreational diver does.

No! The standards dictate that. There will be a market for diving regardless of how high (or low) standards are, sure the market is larger when standards are piss poor and contracts when standards are higher. When experts who had no profit motive first examined was was needed to train a diver the consensus was 100 hours and 12 dives. It was not until diving became a "business" that the march to reduce training began. Now I have no problem with a system that trains people to putter about under warm, calm, gin-clear water, under the watchful eye of someone who is trained and is expected to look out for them. My problem is that people who aspirations really do not exceed that, and who's knowledge and skills are well matched to those aspirations, are told that they are ready and able to dive without that sort of supervision. It is a bold faced lie.

Which is why instructors are more important than agencies when talking about quality of instruction received by any individual person. Large players in the market are large because they are meeting the market demand. The market demand is for inexpensive and fast instruction.

Are they "meeting" the marketed demand or are they lying to the public to undercut those who tell the truth and thus create a demand for a shoddy product amongst a public who has little chance to learn any better?

I know for myself, when I decided to become certified, all I knew about SCUBA diving was what I'd seen on TV. I called up the various shops around me (my first consideration, there are 3 PADI shops and one NAUI shop in driving distance), and I asked two questions "how long" and "how much." I had no reason to suspect that the quality of the course would differ because I had no knowledge of the intricacies of agency certification, or the differences between agencies.

I am not unique. Those are the questions most people ask most shops.

You make my previous point far more eloquently than I possibly could myself.

PADI vs. SDI vs NAUI vs whatever isn't an issue of one set of standards being better than another as the standards are essentially identical.

That's simply not true. It's like the difference between absolute speed limits and prima facia speed limits. The former say that you may not exceed a certain speed, but that it's always leagal to drive that speed, the latter suggests that a given speed is usually appropriate but also says that if the combintation of conditions, the vehicle and the driver are sub par then you must use good judgement and similary if the combintation of conditions, the vehicle and the driver are superior you may go faster. That's much the same as the difference between PADI and NAUI respectively.

It may be an issue of which portion of the market those individual organizations are trying to capture by how rigorously they (in general) meet those standards - but even that varies by local market conditions.

Courses taught in resort towns, for example, are simply going to be less rigorous than courses taught in non-resort areas (again, in general) because the resort market consists of people looking to get into the water during their vacation as quickly as possible. They aren't interested in taking their whole trip up with instruction, they are interested in getting into the water and diving.

As to why people don't take 'discover scuba' courses instead of OW courses? That is basically two factors. The first is economic - the shops are interested in selling the most profitable service. The second is psychological - people want to feel they are special in some way, and given the choice between certifications that otherwise meet other requirements, they will take the one they perceive as more prestigious.

You seem to understand, you seem to get it, but then somehow you go south. Yes, the shops are interested in selling the most profitable service, other thoughts and concerns take a definate back seat. Yes, people want to feel they are special in some way, and given the choice between certifications that otherwise meet other requirements, they will take the one they perceive as more prestigious. So what happens when you put those two things together? The shops make money as the people get stroked into thinking that they are something special, to wit: competent, capable divers. You perceive the big lie perfectly, yet choose to defend it. I just don't understand.

I'm not sure that we don't get what is advertised. My local PADI shop, for example, advertises that OW training will teach a person to: Plan, conduct and log open water no stop (no decompression) dives when equipped properly and accompanied by a buddy in conditions which you have training and or experience.

And that's another of the lies, how many people, without some more dives (AOW), without some buoyancy training (PPB), without a rescue class, etc. would agree that they are ready to dive with a similarly trainind buddy in the conditions that they were trained in? Not very many ... hence the amazing dropout rate as people who, for no fault of thier own, give up diving beacause they're not comfortable and somehow feel that they are incompetent because they don't measure up.

It is not advertised that the person will be an experienced diver capable of handling any conditions and dealing with any potential situation with out even thinking twice about it.

Surely not, what is advertised is not met, so clearly anything more is not.

Well, when it comes to minimum standards quite a few are not (fully) independent of each other, which is why there are many reciprocal agreements of certification recognition between them.

And when it comes to the diving population, UTD, GUE, IANTD and TDI are not major players in the recreational market. They just aren't. Market share is more or less an objectively definable thing. The vast, vast majority of the market is served by a very few agencies.

And those smaller players will probably never be large presences in the average recreational diver market precisely because the higher standards they set preclude them from filling the market space that folks like PADI, SDI, NAUI and others fill.

Even those organizations suddenly increased their instructor presence in the world 1,000 fold, they still could not meet the market demand -- anymore than Rolls Royce can put a car in every driveway even should they be able to find enough craftsmen to up their production to that level. The economics just don't support it.

"Good enough" will always win the volume war for a service market.

Quality is lost by complacency and being worn away a speck at at time, twenty years later you turn around there is little or no respembelence to what was and there is no single item that you point to and point in time that you can identify that marks the begining of the downward slope. Positive change, however, rarely happens incrementaly, it usually occurs catastrophicaly (in a mathematical sense) often in response to a single tragedy of incident.

But isn't the risk calculus exactly what tells us if a set of standards as implemented is sufficient?

Is there any objective evidence that scuba diving is more risky today than it was 10 or 20 or 30 years ago?

Risk is the wrong measure ... diving under most circumstances just does not have that much risk associated with it as illustrated by the fact that in the early days many people survived within the "recreational limits" not much more than knowing not to inhale on ascent. I'd say that drop out rate is a much better measure of the sufficiency of a set of standards.

 

[Thalassamania]

Is there any objective evidence that scuba divers trained under one set of standards are at greater risk than those trained under another set of standards when diving in recreational limits?

Yes there is. While the recreational agencies have been rather tight lipped about their real numbers, we can take a look from the extremes in, what that shows us is that there are a number of fatalties and injuries, not to mention a skyhigh dropout rate are dignostic of the sports diving community whilst the scientific diving community (the major difference really being in the duration of training) enjoys extremely low fatalty, injury and dropout rates. I suspect that if you were to compare matched populations of say PADI trained divers with divers trained through LA County (the most similar to the scientific programs) or GUE you'd see similar results.

My understanding is that studies have been done on both of those questions and the answers are that we are reducing risk across the board, especially among recreational divers, and that the differences between agencies with respect to safety in the recreational dive population is inconclusive.

If that is the case then your understandind is quite at odds with mine. References please?

As cost and time are a significant part of the market drivers for this (or any activity) I see no reason to suppose that the number of people certified every year would stay the same or increase.

It may be that as a percentage of those certified more would be regular divers, as only those more interested in the hobby would pursue certification in the first place. It may also be that those who are certified are more likely to continue due to being more comfortable engaging in diving. But participation maintenance isn't what I'm talking about -- and I would guess you and I have a fair amount of agreement that people are more likely to continue an activity if they enjoy it more, and that they are more likely to an enjoy an activity the better prepared they are to engage in the activity in the first place.

Again, you seem to get it but then turn away. Sure, if you restore standards to where they were you will have seveal results, clealry there will be some reduction in the number of new recruits to diving, but those who are trained will be more likely to stick with it, purchase more gear, purchase advanced gear, and dive for many years.

Is there any evidence that the current training standards are producing a greater rate of such incidents as a percentage of the diving population as opposed to some previous, presumably more rigorous standard? My understanding is that half-way decent data doesn't exist prior to DAN starting to collect the numbers, and that even within that limited time-frame, the data is far from complete. However, within the data as it is, analysis on incident rates does not show increases of risk as standards have been relaxed.

Your understanding is in error, the National Underwater Accident Data Center, which was absorbed into DAN with John McAniff's retirement, did a much better than "half decent" job for many years before DAN existed. There has been a shift in emphesis due to a shift in focus and expertice, the NUADC reports were (IMHO) better with respect to training, equipment, and incidents while the DAN reports are better with respect to medical issues. In any case, risk is not really the issue, or the best measure.

Agencies which have virtually no market place penetration are not worth discussing in this context. NOLA divers are trained to a higher standard as well, but since the vast majority of prospective divers have no access to these agencies, their standards are immaterial to a discussion around the standards recreational divers as a population.

I've sent an e-mail to SEI asking for any information number of instructors (preferably by state) and number of students certified but have so far not received a response.

Not true. Standards are set in relation to the risk of the activity. Standards, when met, impact risk. Standards raise or lower risk, but they are adequate or inadequate only in relationship to what someone subjectively (and somewhat arbitrarily) determines to be an acceptable risk level.

Is 1 incident exacerbated by inadequate training in 100,000 dives acceptable risk? Is 2? At what point is risk acceptable and is 1 less incident not acceptable?

I think that risk only becomes a measure of the effectiveness of standards when you have a a high enough level of risk to rise up out of the stochastic events that occur when one "flops off a boat like a dead tuna into gin clear water that is the temperature of a urine sample." It's sort of like walking across a level floor, the risk comes not from the walking but from the possiblity of a slippery spot or something falling on your head, random events that are not directly connected with the act of walking per se. But as the activity becomes more difficult, say running pell-mel up and down a flight of stairs, the risk level rises and can be significantly effected by rules and training as deterministic process eclipse the stochastic. Or when you move into a realm (as we are in scientific diving) where zero failure, even from stochastic processes) will be tolerated and training takes cognizance of both a requirement for the situational awareness to identify and the procedural skills required to minimize the risk of slippery spots and falling chandeliers.

I equate expanded standards as increasing cost and time, and thus failing to meet market demands.

Expanded standards do not fail to meet market demands, they change them, quite possibly into a more profitable paradigm.

No, I have not read SEI standards. The standards I know I've read are PADI, NAUI, SDI and NOLA. I in no way claim to be an expert in interpreting any of them.

While you may have read them, it is quite clear to to me, one who is expert in at least NAUI's, that you failed to grasp them.

... There are two types of risk. The inherent risk of being in an environment, and the inherent risk of a person engaging in that activity with a particular level of training.

If everyone was at the same risk, then no amount of training would be necessary for any diver -- after all, they'd have the same risk. But we know that is not the case, someone who is completely untrained is going to be much more likely to do something wrong and create an incident or exacerbate a minor problem into a major event.

The question of training standards is entirely about the second type of risk and something akin to consensus as to what is an acceptable risk level for recreational divers.

If there is no evidence that risk is increased by following PADI training over following SEI (to pick Walter's apparent favorite agency) then complaints that PADI's training standards are insufficient compared to SEI's is so much hot air.

Once again, you reach, almost get it, but then wander off. The risk of the environment is not constant from place to place and time to time. It ranges from the rather benign of shallow water, on calm days, in tropical islands to the challenges of, say, the Northern California coast when the wind is blowing like stink. There is little or no inherent risk to a person in the former as long as do not run out of air and remember to always breathe normally while the latter presents some real risk, even to a well trained individual. What it boils down to is that I object to people being made to feel "special" by being prepared for and escorted on comforable and rather risk free excursions while not being sufficiently trained to deal with much more and also not being equipped to really be able to differentiate were the fine line that separates where it is OK for them to go from where it is too dangerous for them to go. How many OW students (of even instructors for that matter) are able to look out over a cove and tell you, to a certainty, that the conditions are, "the same or better than those that they trained in?" Would not a little more "top" in their training be prudent to compensate for such potential errors?