Universal certification standards

[Rhenry]

The shop had both programs available; they had instructors for both programs. I quit one and joined the other. It was a choice I had to make based upon other factors. I do not think this had anything to do with the closure. I do believe the closure was due to economics and some short term credit issues. The folks at the shop were top notch; they were professionals in all respects.

 

[leapfrog]

ND,

Nicely put. It really is all about marketing. If we start with the definition of marketing being "satisfying consumers' needs" then any product or service always holds a market position.

There were some interesting threads recently about "dumbing down" which I rephrased as "modularizing" which brought some laughter to some of the more learned members of the Board such as Thalassamania and Walter.

What we all agreed on is that a diver being trained through one of the major agencies is not really qualified to dive alone with a buddy until he has done OW, AOW, Rescue and some important specialties such as PPB and Navigation.....unless he or she has been very lucky and has found an instructor who is going to teach above the bare minimums.

Dr.Bill made an interesting comment about the cost of training for an entry level diver "in the old days" and today which explains part of the reason the syllabus has been cut into parts.

The other reason it's cut into parts, IMHO, is that resort training has brought about "need to do it in three days max" which within the delivery pizza society in which we live in means "instant gratification" which has now found its way into dive operations that are not resorts.

GUE is taking an interesting "high ground" marketing position. As you say, very few people are going to make that kind of commitment in terms of money and time without even knowing if they really want to be divers. However, GUE will undoubtedly have a growing share of the market but it will stay small.

As rstofer says, the student who has never dived before is either going to walk into his LDS and take whatever is offered if the price is right or many have a preconceived idea about a certain agency and think that that agency is "the agency". Quite a few times, the OWD course itself is called by the agency name, as in someone walking in and saying, "I'm interested in doing my XXXX".

A lot of people say you get what you pay for. That's true to an extent. It's also true that anything you do in life without prior research is likely to rebound on you, whether it be buying a car, choosing where to live, deciding which schoolto go to or send your kids to and very often who you take as a spouse (I think it's now politically correct to call them "life partner").

Why would it be any different when you choose where and with whom to learn to dive?

 

[rstofer]

On a related note - I recently got a price & time quote for the new GUE OW diver class. It provides the equiv of OW, AOW, Rescue & Nitrox - for about $1500 and 22 weeks, and requires 11 ow dives. Compare that with $500 & 5 weeks for PADI courses (all my local info, YMMV), with 4 dives. How many people do you know, who know nothing about diving, are going to say to themselves, "Hmm...$1500 vs $500....yeah, I'll go with the $1500 one, esp. since it takes 4 times as long" ???

I'm pretty sure the PADI sequence of OW, AOW and Rescue requires 13 dives, not 4. Dives are not required for Nitrox. The cost locally for all 4 classes is about $700 plus personal equipment and rentals.

By the time I finished NAUI OW I, OW II, Advanced Open Water and Rescue, I had 19 dives, somewhat more than GUE. I don't recall what it cost; it wasn't significant. But that's the old program (circa '88) so I don't know where it comes out today. According to NAUI, that sequence is equivalent to the current Master Scuba Diver program. They have dropped one of the open water classes and, I suspect, changed the content of the others. I don't think they had 'specialties' back then; everything was included like search and recovery, deep, night and mapping/navigation. At least 'specialties' weren't offered at the LDS I used in Singapore.

The current PADI OW course consists of 3 sessions of classroom/pool (one session is a Friday evening) and 4 open water dives. That's it! Two weeks and you're off to conquer the world...

The AOW/Nitrox combined class (locally) requires 2 evening sessions and 5 OW dives on the following weekend.

The Rescue course (locally) requires one Saturday for class and Sunday for the OW work. Obtaining the required First Aid and CPR training is a separate issue.

In theory, the entire sequence could be completed in 4 weeks assuming the class schedules worked out.


If GUE instructors turn out divers that dive as well as the fellows in the "Essentials" video, their classes are worth every bit of the money. On my best day, I don't have buoyancy as controlled as those guys. I also don't fin with my knees bent and I have no idea how to do that helicopter spin. I guess I could learn... Those guys are good!

Richard

 

[NudeDiver]

I'm pretty sure the PADI sequence of OW, AOW and Rescue requires 13 dives, not 4. Dives are not required for Nitrox.

You completely missed my point here. I never said that the PADI *sequence* only requires 4 dives. I was talking about the OW class. I was comparing the "first" GUE class with the "first" PADI class. In other words, if you are a potential diver, and trying to find out how to get certified, you may be offered the choice:

• Choice #1: $500. Takes 5 weeks and requires 4 OW dives.
• Choice #2: $1500. Takes 22 weeks and requires 11 OW dives.

Given these choices, and a potential diver, who typically knows nothing about anything with respect to diving, which class is the potential diver most likely to buy?

The cost locally for all 4 classes is about $700 plus personal equipment and rentals.

For you perhaps. Up here, they would just laugh in your face if you tried to swing that kind of deal. I freely admit prices may be cheaper elsewhere - I can only talk about my local prices and how local classes are typically done. Those classes would cost you more like $1700 at a local dive shop here, and I believe may require books and possibly rentals on top of that.

The current PADI OW course consists of 3 sessions of classroom/pool (one session is a Friday evening) and 4 open water dives. That's it! Two weeks and you're off to conquer the world...

Again - perhaps for you. It's not run that way up here.

The AOW/Nitrox combined class (locally) requires 2 evening sessions and 5 OW dives on the following weekend.

The Rescue course (locally) requires one Saturday for class and Sunday for the OW work. Obtaining the required First Aid and CPR training is a separate issue.

Again - not up here. My rescue class had 6 classroom sessions and 4 pool sessions and was spread over several weeks. Starting to sound like, "it's the instructor, not the agency" eh?

 

[Thalassamania]

Neither agency is going to be happy with that!

It would not bother NAUI in the least, as long as all NAUI standards were met by adding the required items to the PADI course.

To answer the OP's questions

I am new to diving, I received my OW cert this year. It struck me as funny when I went in to get certified, there was the PADI course, then the NAUI course and the list goes on. I asked the dumb question of the day, whats the difference? Is one better then the other? The answers I got were basically they all provide the same certification but with slightly different methods. The other answer was not they are all about the same, its a personal preference. The instructor that was there on the day I walked in was a NAUI instructor, naturally was talking NAUI up over the others, he said the training material in his option was better. I signed up for the PADI course, I had seen this around the world in my tour of duty with the U.S. Navy, so it seemed logical to go PADI. I liked the course, but was dismayed that the training material was thin, no cd like my fellow NAUI students had, I just had the tape that I had to return. The dive tables were different; it was like we were taking two totally different courses. This brought up the question why? I will not go on, but needless to say the standard is whatever the agency thinks it is.

PADI's training material is, as you describe it, "very thin." Their philosophy is to try and hit the lowest common denominator and thus be able to come up with a one size fits all product. You must also understand that PADI's standards are designed to be met exactly, with as little course to course variation as possible. NAUI's material is a little thicker, but not much. The difference is that NAUI permits an instructor to use whatever texts he or she wants, as long as the subject material meets (or exceeds) the learning objectives described in NAUI's standards. A NAUI course could even use the PADI materials, with appropriate additional handouts or could step way up in quality and use the NOAA or the Navy Diving Manuals. This is because unlike the PADI system which permits only small variability the NAUI system sets a bar that you must get over. How far you choose to clear the bar by is your own business.

This brings me to the real question, Why isn't there a standard, were we all use the same dive tables, the same dive routine for qualification, the same training ,material, etc. I work in the telecommunication field, we have many different agencies that I work with, but we do have one universal standard that we must all follow. Why don't we have the same sort of universal standard?

Because more than a few individuals have, over the last fifty years or so, identified an opportunity to carve a new life out of the diving public.

The second more concerning issue to me is why are all the dive tables so different? How can you come up with to very different repeptive dive times? Is it rolling the dice as to which one is better?

Ron

It is quite possible to have many different tables, and have them all be correct. In some cases it is because of different assumptions concerning how people dive such as how many dives they are likely to make in a day. In other cases it has to do with set factors such as a predefined ascent rate. PADI is the only agency that actually went out and developed a set of tables based on their own requirements. The other agencies just took U.S. Navy numbers and cut them back one notch.

I'm pretty sure the PADI sequence of OW, AOW and Rescue requires 13 dives, not 4. Dives are not required for Nitrox. The cost locally for all 4 classes is about $700 plus personal equipment and rentals.

By the time I finished NAUI OW I, OW II, Advanced Open Water and Rescue, I had 19 dives, somewhat more than GUE. I don't recall what it cost; it wasn't significant. But that's the old program (circa '88) so I don't know where it comes out today. According to NAUI, that sequence is equivalent to the current Master Scuba Diver program. They have dropped one of the open water classes and, I suspect, changed the content of the others. I don't think they had 'specialties' back then; everything was included like search and recovery, deep, night and mapping/navigation. At least 'specialties' weren't offered at the LDS I used in Singapore.

The current PADI OW course consists of 3 sessions of classroom/pool (one session is a Friday evening) and 4 open water dives. That's it! Two weeks and you're off to conquer the world...

The AOW/Nitrox combined class (locally) requires 2 evening sessions and 5 OW dives on the following weekend.

The Rescue course (locally) requires one Saturday for class and Sunday for the OW work. Obtaining the required First Aid and CPR training is a separate issue.

In theory, the entire sequence could be completed in 4 weeks assuming the class schedules worked out.


If GUE instructors turn out divers that dive as well as the fellows in the "Essentials" video, their classes are worth every bit of the money. On my best day, I don't have buoyancy as controlled as those guys. I also don't fin with my knees bent and I have no idea how to do that helicopter spin. I guess I could learn... Those guys are good!

Richard

Actually those guys look like our entry level divers at the end of a 100 hour training program. It's not big deal if you start off from day one with the rules that you can't touch the bottom or the sides of the pool or go to the surface unless instructed to do so, and you train in full gear from day one.

You completely missed my point here. I never said that the PADI *sequence* only requires 4 dives. I was talking about the OW class. I was comparing the "first" GUE class with the "first" PADI class. In other words, if you are a potential diver, and trying to find out how to get certified, you may be offered the choice:

• Choice #1: $500. Takes 5 weeks and requires 4 OW dives.
• Choice #2: $1500. Takes 22 weeks and requires 11 OW dives.

Given these choices, and a potential diver, who typically knows nothing about anything with respect to diving, which class is the potential diver most likely to buy?

For you perhaps. Up here, they would just laugh in your face if you tried to swing that kind of deal. I freely admit prices may be cheaper elsewhere - I can only talk about my local prices and how local classes are typically done. Those classes would cost you more like $1700 at a local dive shop here, and I believe may require books and possibly rentals on top of that.

Again - perhaps for you. It's not run that way up here.

Again - not up here. My rescue class had 6 classroom sessions and 4 pool sessions and was spread over several weeks. Starting to sound like, "it's the instructor, not the agency" eh?

We can argue all day and all night about the exact number of dives and the exact cost in one location or another ... but there seems to be general agreement that a diver who is going to expected to be able to dive with a similarly trained diver, on his or her own, will need the equivalent of (in the PADI system) OW, Buoyancy, AOW and Rescue. I think we would also all agree that taken all together that represents about 12 dives and about 100 hours of training. Those are interesting numbers because that this the number of dives and the number of hours that the science community required be part of an entry level research diving course in the early 1950s, and still requires today.

 

[lowviz]

None of this will make much sense to you until you are diving without an instructor and something goes wrong.

 

[rstofer]

Actually those guys look like our entry level divers at the end of a 100 hour training program. It's not big deal if you start off from day one with the rules that you can't touch the bottom or the sides of the pool or go to the surface unless instructed to do so, and you train in full gear from day one.
We can argue all day and all night about the exact number of dives and the exact cost in one location or another ... but there seems to be general agreement that a diver who is going to expected to be able to dive with a similarly trained diver, on his or her own, will need the equivalent of (in the PADI system) OW, Buoyancy, AOW and Rescue. I think we would also all agree that taken all together that represents about 12 dives and about 100 hours of training. Those are interesting numbers because that this the number of dives and the number of hours that the science community required be part of an entry level research diving course in the early 1950s, and still requires today.

Exactly! Until a diver reaches the equivalent of MSD in either the PADI or NAUI scheme, they really don't have much in the way of skills. And then they can start to rack up some dives because real competence comes with experience.

Quibbling over one OW program or another is meaningless because OW itself is just a small part of the necessary training. Four dives means exactly nothing.

Richard

 

[Thalassamania]

Exactly! Until a diver reaches the equivalent of MSD in either the PADI or NAUI scheme, they really don't have much in the way of skills. And then they can start to rack up some dives because real competence comes with experience.

Quibbling over one OW program or another is meaningless because OW itself is just a small part of the necessary training. Four dives means exactly nothing.

Richard

I fear you miss the point. First of all a NAUI MSD is not at all the same thing as a PADI MSD. Secondly, and this is not a "quibble," we all know what an OW PADI diver looks like, there's a little variability ... but not much. But there is no similar stereotype for a NAUI or YMCA diver because you really don't know if the product of a NAUI or YMCA course is little more than the aforementioned PADI OW diver (with a few minor additions) or (if I may set a reseach course at the other extreme) is someone who just came out of my 100 hour course ... or just where they might fall in between. A NAUI or Y diver might have five training dives and might have twenty.

 

[NudeDiver]

... but there seems to be general agreement that a diver who is going to expected to be able to dive with a similarly trained diver, on his or her own, will need the equivalent of (in the PADI system) OW, Buoyancy, AOW and Rescue.

I don't agree with this at all.

Exactly! Until a diver reaches the equivalent of MSD in either the PADI or NAUI scheme, they really don't have much in the way of skills. And then they can start to rack up some dives because real competence comes with experience.

And I don't agree with this at all either. Getting an MSD cert, esp. one from PADI, is not a prerequisite to having "much in the way of skills" at all.

 

[Thalassamania]

I don't agree with this at all.

OK, if you do not agree, then let's see your list.

And I don't agree with this at all either. Getting an MSD cert, esp. one from PADI, is not a prerequisite to having "much in the way of skills" at all.

A NAUI MSD means quite a bit, a PADI MSD means you've a card collection.