Rickk
Contributor
Does diving training as practiced promote Dunning Kruger?
For those who don’t know the Dunning Kruger effect it is the tendency of people who know a little about something assuming that they know it all because they do not know what they don’t know. They overrate their skills and ability because they do not have the knowledge of what they should be doing: don’t know what they are doing wrong.
Basically, the old saying a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
I am more familiar with PADI training but from what I see all agencies have the various levels of training and a basic open water is generally a couple days effort. The dive instructors are usually associated with a dive operation and the financial incentive is to get as many people in the water as possible as much as possible so scaring them with a very detailed assessment of the dangers as well as spending a lot of time on that is just not profitable.
Then they go out and do a couple dozen dives thinking that practice makes perfect, it doesn’t practice makes permanent, if you practice bad skills and procedures, these become permanent.
I have seen instructors complete the training and say, now you are a diver after open water dive #5. These new divers have no idea what they are doing, they have poor buoyancy control, normal as this takes time underwater to achieve, they have bad gas management, again understandable as this too takes experience to achieve, they have bad propulsion control as this too takes practice to achieve, but they are divers and they have a shiny piece of plastic to prove it.
I was lucky, my OW instructor made it clear that additional training, at least an AOW was necessary. He told me I had good basic skills but needed time in the water to get better, As I was at a resort and dove several more times post certification, he guided me and offered helpful suggestions. I then took the AOW back in Canada and was exposed to a whole different type of diving, cold low vis, heavy suits, dry suits that I had not experienced in Jamaica.
Not all instructors are as supportive, they often look at new divers as something to get through the training mill and then can charge for additional dives, in resort diving they will often never see the diver again so what happens to them is not their worry.
In my younger and more foolish days, I took a private pilot license, upon passing my check out flight the tester said “Congratulations, you now have a license to learn how to fly.”. To me that is what an OW cert is, a license to learn how to dive.
What can be done to stop this Dunning Kruger effect?
Personally, I would like to see an OW cert expire in say 5 years if not supplemented by an AOW cert. That way at a minimum the new diver would realize that he is not fully trained and the best diver around but needs some additional training.
I have dove with people who only had the OW cert and several hundred dives and they were pretty good divers, but most serious divers I have seen have taken additional training, usually up to Rescue Diver but lots have gone beyond that and have several specialties ( not the BS fish identification ones, but Wreck, deep, dry suit, ice etc.)
How do we get the guy who does not want to “be a diver” but only wants to “do diving” once a year at a resort become a safer diver, safer for them but safer for us and for the environment as well?
For those who don’t know the Dunning Kruger effect it is the tendency of people who know a little about something assuming that they know it all because they do not know what they don’t know. They overrate their skills and ability because they do not have the knowledge of what they should be doing: don’t know what they are doing wrong.
Basically, the old saying a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
I am more familiar with PADI training but from what I see all agencies have the various levels of training and a basic open water is generally a couple days effort. The dive instructors are usually associated with a dive operation and the financial incentive is to get as many people in the water as possible as much as possible so scaring them with a very detailed assessment of the dangers as well as spending a lot of time on that is just not profitable.
Then they go out and do a couple dozen dives thinking that practice makes perfect, it doesn’t practice makes permanent, if you practice bad skills and procedures, these become permanent.
I have seen instructors complete the training and say, now you are a diver after open water dive #5. These new divers have no idea what they are doing, they have poor buoyancy control, normal as this takes time underwater to achieve, they have bad gas management, again understandable as this too takes experience to achieve, they have bad propulsion control as this too takes practice to achieve, but they are divers and they have a shiny piece of plastic to prove it.
I was lucky, my OW instructor made it clear that additional training, at least an AOW was necessary. He told me I had good basic skills but needed time in the water to get better, As I was at a resort and dove several more times post certification, he guided me and offered helpful suggestions. I then took the AOW back in Canada and was exposed to a whole different type of diving, cold low vis, heavy suits, dry suits that I had not experienced in Jamaica.
Not all instructors are as supportive, they often look at new divers as something to get through the training mill and then can charge for additional dives, in resort diving they will often never see the diver again so what happens to them is not their worry.
In my younger and more foolish days, I took a private pilot license, upon passing my check out flight the tester said “Congratulations, you now have a license to learn how to fly.”. To me that is what an OW cert is, a license to learn how to dive.
What can be done to stop this Dunning Kruger effect?
Personally, I would like to see an OW cert expire in say 5 years if not supplemented by an AOW cert. That way at a minimum the new diver would realize that he is not fully trained and the best diver around but needs some additional training.
I have dove with people who only had the OW cert and several hundred dives and they were pretty good divers, but most serious divers I have seen have taken additional training, usually up to Rescue Diver but lots have gone beyond that and have several specialties ( not the BS fish identification ones, but Wreck, deep, dry suit, ice etc.)
How do we get the guy who does not want to “be a diver” but only wants to “do diving” once a year at a resort become a safer diver, safer for them but safer for us and for the environment as well?
