When is a skill "mastered"?

[supergaijin]

My impression is that when PADI (or any training agency) uses the term "mastery" they really mean that the student understands and can perform the skill well enough to go out and practice that outside of a supervised training situation.

... in conditions similar or better to those in which they trained.

 

[TSandM]

I disagree that an instructor who has done a good job in the pool should not have problems with the students in OW.

The last class Peter taught was almost pure fun in the pool. Nobody had anxiety issues at all, and almost everybody picked up buoyancy quickly, and by the end of the sixth session, they could all do their skills in midwater.

Open water was a completely different story, where nobody was strong and one student ended up being asked to come back for another class.

What you can do with no weight in warm water where you can see, is very different from what you can do with 14 mm of neoprene, a thick hood, thick gloves and 30 lbs of weight on you, in five feet of viz. It's just that simple.

 

[AfterDark]

I disagree that an instructor who has done a good job in the pool should not have problems with the students in OW.

The last class Peter taught was almost pure fun in the pool. Nobody had anxiety issues at all, and almost everybody picked up buoyancy quickly, and by the end of the sixth session, they could all do their skills in midwater.

Open water was a completely different story, where nobody was strong and one student ended up being asked to come back for another class.

What you can do with no weight in warm water where you can see, is very different from what you can do with 14 mm of neoprene, a thick hood, thick gloves and 30 lbs of weight on you, in five feet of viz. It's just that simple.

+1 to that! The real world is a different place where the rubber meets the water. One can actually get in real trouble in the real world! Some don't realize that until they are there!

Our 1st OW dive during training was a study in UWNav. The vis was less than 5' and the surface was fog 360deg. My buddy and I became seperated from the group and used my $3.00 compass to get back to the site. During most of the surface swim we were in voice contact with the group but we couldn't see each other. We actually got high marks because even though we got seperated from the group we stayed together, got to the egress and made contact with the group before we left the water!

 

[DevonDiver]

If that person has a card, they have been ripped off by the instructor, who didn't follow agency standards in my opinion. If that person is a student, they need to repeat OW 5 until they pass the skill without being firmly planted on the bottom.

Agency standards say to assess he skill against a given performance standard. The performance standards for skills are all in isolation. Buoyancy control during skill performance would exceed the performance requirements as stated. To exceed those performance requirements in assessment would be the breach of standards <with PADI >.

ie. mask remove/replace must be done. No specification for whether in negative or positive buoyancy. Instructor can specify either, but cannot 'fail that skill based on buoyancy control. Only performance standards applicable to the mask remove/replace are assessed. The instructor assesses buoyancy as a separate skill... again with no added elements.

 

[Wookie]

Agency standards say to assess he skill against a given performance standard. The performance standards for skills are all in isolation. Buoyancy control during skill performance would exceed the performance requirements as stated. To exceed those performance requirements in assessment would be the breach of standards <with PADI >.

ie. mask remove/replace must be done. No specification for whether in negative or positive buoyancy. Instructor can specify either, but cannot 'fail that skill based on buoyancy control. Only performance standards applicable to the mask remove/replace are assessed. The instructor assesses buoyancy as a separate skill... again with no added elements.

I don't find that exceeding standards to be the same level of sin as sending a student out in the world with substandard skills. They send you to different levels of purgatory.... PADI purgatory isn't such a bad place.... I'd love to get a QA letter from Pat telling me that I'm being censured for exceeding standards in that fashion. It would go viral in the diving community.

 

[RJP]

ie. mask remove/replace must be done. No specification for whether in negative or positive buoyancy. Instructor can specify either, but cannot 'fail that skill based on buoyancy control. Only performance standards applicable to the mask remove/replace are assessed. The instructor assesses buoyancy as a separate skill... again with no added elements.

The key thing here - and will sound like semantics - is to use the idea of exceeding standards as better way to PASS students, not as a way to FAIL them. Set expectations up front that the goal is to be able to do certain skills while neutrally bouyant... and that you will work with the student until they can accomplish that. (Rather than look to that skill as the way to FAIL the student.) Sure, ultimately you will need to pass the student if they can do the skill on the bottom, even if they can't do it while neutral. I just can't see a student complaining to PADI because we are trying to make them BETTER divers.

 

[The Chairman]

Instructor can specify either, but cannot 'fail that skill based on buoyancy control.

That's simply not true. If you ask a student to perform a skill while neutral and they can't do it, then they have failed that skill. Don't buy into the hype that PADI won't back an instructor on this as they have in the past. They ask the instructor can the student do the specific skill and all the instructor has to say is "no". Don't say, "only if..." Just say "No, they have failed to demonstrate the skill in an appropriate manner." It's just not that hard.

The problem is not with any agency in this. It's with our litigious society. We all have to do what we can to limit our exposure to liability. That includes being able to state your case logically in a manner that leaves no equivocation.

 

[boulderjohn]

I agree that the current language does not say anything about performing skills while neutrally buoyant (other than the obvious ones, like hovering). I believe that will change next year, based on what we have been told about the coming changes and the new emphasis on buoyancy.

Interested PADI instructors can go to the Instructor to Instructor forum and resurrect the thread where I provided the contact information (with permission) for the PADI representative who said he would be happy to clarify the intent of standards (and especially the fact that skills need not be introduced on the knees) to anyone who questioned them. In our conversation in which he gave me that permission, he said he believed that by CW 3, all skills should be performed while neutrally buoyant. He also said that if he were conducting an IE, he would not only allow instructors to demonstrate all skills while neutral (rather than on the knees), he would prefer it.

 

[Wookie]

You are arguing different points. Andy says you can't fail a skill because it is performed on the knees. The rest of us say we prefer the skill to be performed neutrally buoyant. Guess what? We're all correct!

But - If you're going to get a card from me, you will never perform a skill in open water on your knees. We're going to get that knee thing out of the way in the pool, in water shallow enough to stand in. That means, for me, the top of my head is out of the water when I demonstrate skills. I hate that. Students are not stupid, and will do whatever you teach them to. If you teach them to dive while flailing their arms like a windmill, they will do it. If you teach them to master buoyancy, they will do that too. If you expect mastery, and make it clear to them that mastery is the standard, (whatever mastery is), you'll get mastery. If you allow bare minimums, it's what you will get.

 

[DevonDiver]

That's simply not true. If you ask a student to perform a skill while neutral and they can't do it, then they have failed that skill.

Wookie gets it... I am talking about performance standards and instructor standards. Not instructor preferences..

Show me where, on performance standards for any skill (except hover), it states "whilst neutrally buoyant". It doesn't....

On IDC they are explicit that instructors cannot add their own performance requirements. Adding "whilst neutrally buoyant" is a further performance requirement.

Yes, you can make students practice in neutral buoyancy (and I wholeheartedly support that - and have done for a long time... and long before the PADI article). You just cannot assess buoyancy as a performance requirement as a component of other skills.

Sure, ultimately you will need to pass the student if they can do the skill on the bottom, even if they can't do it while neutral. I just can't see a student complaining to PADI because we are trying to make them BETTER divers.

That's the crux of it. You HAVE to pass them, even if they HAVE to do it on their knees. You CANNOT fail them for losing control of buoyancy if trying to perform the skill from neutral. You CANNOT fail them if the skill goes wrong because they are neutral, rather than kneeling.

Otherwise, they COULD complain - because they might 'fail' a course that other students, with other instructors, would have otherwise passed. PADI are pretty emphatic about 'global' and 'universal' performance standards...

PADI may 'back' an instructor on that informally. Things may change officially in the future. But as it stands... and has stood for many years... instructors are not at liberty to add or remove performance standards from courses. They can however add skills - just not assess them as performance standards.

btw... I am not saying that is right... I am merely pointing out the reality - which is that the actual performance standards cause skills to be assessed in isolation, thus preventing a more robust definition of 'mastery' being applied. That 'more robust' definition of mastery would be the performance of skills under reasonable conditions (i.e. neutral buoyancy) that the student would expect on an actual dive.