The Philosophy of Diver Training

[Diver0001]

for all the individual teachers, though, and they were shocking. Not a single teacher had results anywhere near 60%. Many of them had results surpassing 90% proficient, with some achieving 100%. Many had results lower than 20% proficient, with some having no students proficient at all.

I'm seeing a parallel for scuba training in that....

Not one teacher had results between 25% to 80% proficient. The average reported to the public (and the teachers as a whole) was like putting your right foot in ice water and your left foot in scalding water and reporting the average temperature as a measure of comfort.

So are you saying that in terms of teacher ability it's all or nothing? Either you're a great teacher or you're a failure?

Do you think these results could be projected onto the population of scuba instructors?

R..

 

[Walter]

Either you're a great teacher or you're a failure?

Naw, we measure success in number of certifications.

 

[boulderjohn]

I'm seeing a parallel for scuba training in that....



So are you saying that in terms of teacher ability it's all or nothing? Either you're a great teacher or you're a failure?

Do you think these results could be projected onto the population of scuba instructors?

R..

I am talking about one set of data points in one area. I think that what made the difference so stark was certain unusual circumstances.

In the late 1960s, a man named James Coleman led a huge study of educational processes that found out a lot of useful information but had a huge methodological flaw that was not realized for several decades. That flaw led to an erroneous assumption that plagues us today and was the key factor, I believe, in the results we saw.

Coleman compared the whole school achievement results of schools and programs, and found only one real consistent factor: the socio-economic status (which includes parental education levels) of the students. In other words, schools in affluent areas with high parent education rates did well; schools in poorer areas with lower parental education rates did poorly. Nothing else seemed to matter. The conclusion was that it did not matter how students were taught; success depended upon what the student brought to the party only.

Coleman's error was in not looking at the achievement of the students of individual teachers within those schools. If he had, he would have seen that individual teachers were succeeding in the poorest schools, and individual teachers were failing in the most advantaged schools. The differences were not as significant as they would be today because by and large everyone was using roughly the same methods.

Individual teachers having individual success does not create much of a statistical impact, and, unfortunately, those teachers are often burned out by what surrounds them. The studies of Lezotte and Edmonds showed that when quality leadership brings an environment of an expectation of success to a school and is able to get a large number of teachers working effectively, then you have the results that are often chronicled in schools that have turned achievement around.

In the study we did, we in the central administration were trying very hard to bring two messages to the teaching staff of the district.

1. Teacher instructional decisions are the most important factor in student achievement
2. Newer teaching methods were more effective than the ones traditionally used.

The result was a war (no exaggeration) between the traditionalists (it doesn't matter how I teach, and what I have always done has worked just fine) and the change agents (what I do matters for the child, and these new methods really are more effective). Thus, there was a clear black and white division that would probably not occur in most situations.

The amazing thing is that studies today show the same thing. Schools that adopt the changes identified 2 decades ago regularly show great improvement, but it takes a dedicated leader to turn around the traditionalists. In fact, a study by the Annenberg Institute for School reform showed that the failure of leadership to deal effectively with one or two dissident teachers is enough to sink reform efforts. Moreover, in case after case after case, when a successful leader leaves that position and heads off into the horizon, the replacement leader is often ineffective and the school slides back toward mediocrity.

 

[boulderjohn]

I forgot to mention how I see this affecting scuba instruction. I think there are several factors.

1. To begin with, although Coleman failed to recognize the importance of the individual instructor, he was correct that in whole group success, the quality of the overall student body at the beginning of instruction has a lot to say about the quality of the student performance at the end. As I noted in an earlier post, there are many cases where we have seen high schools take excellent freshman, turn them into very good seniors, and then boast about the results.

When I have students who are struggling, I do all I can to make them successful, but I don't always get there. Over the past couple of years a few notable failures stand out:

1. A 13 year old who clearly had not done any of the pre-reading before the first academic class and had a very flip attitude toward it all. His parents and I decided he should grow up a little before trying again.
2. A 58 year old woman who had had a double mastectomy within the past year and who had never before in her life had her head under water.
3. A 69 year old man who has had several significant surgeries and was, frankly, feeble. He simply could not do the CW1 skills and decided (wisely) that scuba was not in his future.
4. An autistic 15 year old whose autism was severe enough that he required a full time personal aide when he was in school. We worked with him for many sessions and finally got him to the point that we would give him a scuba diver certification so that he would always dive with a professional.

I wonder how the instructors in the scientific diving instruction classes handle those situations.

2. There is a reflex among instructors in all areas to hold onto whatever they have been doing and look with suspicion on anything new. This seems to be true in all kinds of instruction but nowhere else. Doctors are always looking for new and more effective ways to treat patients. No one goes into an iron lung any more. Technology improves every day. Can you imagine someone saying "Why improve the computer? What we have now works fine."

3. There is a tendency among all kinds of instructors to say something along the lines of "What I have been dong is working." Does that mean it cannot be improved in any way? I used to listen in amazement to teachers with staggering failure rates saying that. It is hard to admit that changing what you are doing can improve results, even if only a little.

4. (This is similar to but not quite the same as number 2.) All instructors have a tendency to teach things they like to teach even if an objective analysis shows that it serves no useful purpose or may even be counterproductive. When they do this, they struggle to come up with rational reasons for doing it, reasons that seem perfectly fine to them but not so fine to people who do not have that preferential bias (the tendency we all have to look at data and interpret it to draw the conclusion you want it to support rather than the one it actually supports).

 

[Diver0001]

I am talking about one set of data points in one area. I think that what made the difference so stark was certain unusual circumstances.

....snip....

.

I see one big difference between schools and scuba classes in that schools have a fixed timeframe to teach students and scuba classes can take as long as necessary.

Obviously, with a fixed time frame efficiency is the key to success. With scuba classes, one could argue that efficiency is only relevant to the student's pocket book.

For example, say an instructor was giving a course including 155 hours. I'm sure if you analyzed that particular instructor's course that you would be able to see all kinds of things that could be tightened up and done more efficiently. You might draw the conclusion that the instructor wasn't a very good instructor because in fact much of the time he needs to do his course is needed to fix his own mistakes.

Another instructor might be doing a course that takes 31 hours (to pick a random example). That instructor, despite his agency's belief that the course should be competence driven, is under considerable time pressure because of the vacation schedules of his clients and pressure put on him from his employer to be "productive" (read: make money). This instructor might find some VERY efficient ways of teaching things that are 5 or maybe 15 times quicker than instructor #1. IN fact, you might conclude if you analyzed this instructor's performace as compared to instructor #1 that he/she is a much better instructor than instructor #1. It's logical. He has to be better because he doesn't have the time to waste....

But if you look at the STUDENTS coming out of course #1 and course #2, then you would probably see a big difference in how well they could dive. Maybe if you could measure it then instructor #1's students wouldn't be 5 times better than instructor #2. Maybe they're only 2 or 3 times better, reflecting the fact that instructor #1 wastes a lot of time....

But that instructor (#1) would argue that his course is better because the finished product is better, regardless of how inefficiently he did it. That's essentially what Thal and DCBC are arguing and somehow I would have to agree with them. From the point of view of results, the student's skill matters most. How much time they needed to get the job done and how much extra the student needed to pay for that training are of no relevance at all.

So that's the thing. I think studies done in public education can't really be projected onto scuba training unless scuba training is done on a time line.

Part 2, of course, is that 90% of students learn on some kine of a timeline whether that complies to the agency's philosophy or not . It's just the way our society functions.

So I see two discussions. For instructors whose students have unlimited time and money efficiency is irrelevant and for instructors whose students DO have limits on their time and budget, efficiency is an important point.

And THAT seems to pinpoint the issue that people say is a problem with "standards".

R..

 

[boulderjohn]

For example, say an instructor was giving a course including 155 hours. I'm sure if you analyzed that particular instructor's course that you would be able to see all kinds of things that could be tightened up and done more efficiently. You might draw the conclusion that the instructor wasn't a very good instructor because in fact much of the time he needs to do his course is needed to fix his own mistakes.

Another instructor might be doing a course that takes 31 hours (to pick a random example). That instructor, despite his agency's belief that the course should be competence driven, is under considerable time pressure because of the vacation schedules of his clients and pressure put on him from his employer to be "productive" (read: make money). This instructor might find some VERY efficient ways of teaching things that are 5 or maybe 15 times quicker than instructor #1. IN fact, you might conclude if you analyzed this instructor's performance as compared to instructor #1 that he/she is a much better instructor than instructor #1. It's logical. He has to be better because he doesn't have the time to waste....

Along that line...

I have had a conversation with a number of people off line about their frustrations with what they have seen in certain technical diving instruction. What they have experienced (and I have seen myself) is instructors giving poor explanations of a skill, providing no demonstration, allowing no practice, and then sending the students out for an evaluation in an OW setting. The student doing it for the first time and frankly guessing at some of the procedures screws it up and is unable to complete it successfully in the OW session. The student must await another session on another date to try again. Maybe another after that.

The instructors are very proud of how many times it takes to get the students to get it right and how long it takes them to complete the class, because they feel both numbers show they have high standards. They would look down on an instructor who demonstrated the skill properly and let students practice enough to get it down because that instructor accepted the student's first attempt in OW (which was successful) and did in much less time overall. They feel that indicates lax standards.

(That description above is NOT hypothetical.)

 

[boulderjohn]

I see one big difference between schools and scuba classes in that schools have a fixed timeframe to teach students and scuba classes can take as long as necessary.

That is true to a large extent, but schools can manipulate time more than you might think. Mastery Learning is a concept that allows for this manipulation. There is a saying among advocates of mastery learning that we used to make time the standard and learning the variable, but now we make learning the standard and time the variable.

In the U.S., current state laws are usually contradictory about this, and this is, I believe, one of the biggest problems we face in education today. Schools are not supposed to graduate students until they have demonstrated mastery of standards (mastery learning), but they are penalized if they do not graduate a specific percentage on time, exactly four years after enrolling as freshman. In the long run, the penalty for failing to graduate the students is greater than the penalty for not educating them, so....

By the way, that is how almost all dive instruction is done today. The term mastery is standard in such systems, and PADI's use of it is correct because it is using it in its educational context. Using the term in its non-educational definition is not appropriate.

 

[DCBC]

I suspect many of us try to improve the way we instruct diving. This was a major reason for me becoming cross-certified with several instructor agencies. I felt each offered a slightly different perspective with each offering something positive. This resulted in broadening my horizons as an instructor, as well as providing some insight into the diving industry as a whole. It seems that there are many instructors who are not aware of the strengths and weaknesses of the various agency programs.

Although we can always improve our instructional ability, it is the agencies we teach through that largely provide the course content and often direct what we can and cannot teach. Course training times may vary greatly from agency to agency.

As I've mentioned in a previous post, the quality of a diver is mitigated by the quality of the instructor and the quantity of time that instructor is involved in the training process. As others have already mentioned, the in-water ability and the attitude/determination of the student are also contributing factors.

We generally don't pick and choose the students we are asked to teach. In most cases it's open to anyone who wishes to learn, meets the age/health/in-water requirements and has a financial ability to take the program.

The instructor may have some variance in their ability to teach, but all have met certain requirements. I would suggest that although there are some instructors who shouldn't be teaching, the majority (in my mind at least) are competent in all of the agencies.

If we assume this to be true, this leaves the program itself as a wild-card. It would seem that the trend is to shorten the training exposure. This is where I feel the differences in the agencies come into play.

I don't know anything about formal education other than being a student and having some experience with my children when they were in the system. It would seem however, that regardless of a high quality of instruction, if the student is to know much, he has to have ample time with an instructor to learn the course material.

Perhaps it would be beneficial to analyze the training philosophy of each diving agency and discuss the pros and cons that exist with them. Organizations like CMAS, LA County (and to a lesser extent) ACUC, SEI & NAUI tend to require longer training times than PADI and perhaps some other organizations move more quickly. Although all of the Agencies claim to have a modular training program, some are more modular than others.

Shorter training times have not resulted in higher rates of mortality (as far as I know). Drop out rates of divers are high and this may or may not be attributable to diver competence, or at least with the level of comfort these divers feel. I don't think that anyone can state that the number of near fatal accidents have gone up, but it is my opinion that this is the case. I would however add that this may be a result of a greater number of divers in the water and not attributable to lower training standards.

 

[DCBC]

For instructors whose students have unlimited time and money efficiency is irrelevant and for instructors whose students DO have limits on their time and budget, efficiency is an important point.

And THAT seems to pinpoint the issue that people say is a problem with "standards".

Yes, this certainly is a factor, but I wouldn't suggest that because the course is longer, that it is automatically less efficient. Although I must admit that if I taught on a "C-card assembly line," I would have to increase my efficiency and would end-up teaching 50% of the usual course content.

I suppose it depends upon how the student wants to learn and how the instructor wants to teach? As long as the student is properly prepared to dive safely, how they get there doesn't really matter. If however, the student is certified and has not been taught the skill-sets he needs to function as a responsible Buddy and dive unsupervised, I have a problem with that (resort courses not-withstanding).

 

[D_B]

Along that line...

I have had a conversation with a number of people off line about their frustrations with what they have seen in certain technical diving instruction. What they have experienced (and I have seen myself) is instructors giving poor explanations of a skill, providing no demonstration, allowing no practice, and then sending the students out for an evaluation in an OW setting. The student doing it for the first time and frankly guessing at some of the procedures screws it up and is unable to complete it successfully in the OW session. The student must await another session on another date to try again. Maybe another after that.

The instructors are very proud of how many times it takes to get the students to get it right and how long it takes them to complete the class, because they feel both numbers show they have high standards. They would look down on an instructor who demonstrated the skill properly and let students practice enough to get it down because that instructor accepted the student's first attempt in OW (which was successful) and did in much less time overall. They feel that indicates lax standards.

(That description above is NOT hypothetical.)

wow ... I cant imagine an instructor who's goal is not to impart safety to their students in the most concise and duplicable way possible