Modularized Training vs all-at-once

[drrich2]

I see a mix of issues in these threads. Some think basic OW training is nowhere near sufficient, with a number of motives:

1.) Poor buoyancy leading to reef damage. Legitimate concern.
2.) Poor skills and readiness combined with ignorance - risk to fatalities (yet scuba seems to be a pretty safe sport).
3.) Belief inadequate preparation leads to premature abandoning of the sport (has to be balanced against the fewer who'd get certified to begin with if it were more elaborate).
4.) A desire to exclude those they see as somehow unfit - lousy navigators dependent on a guide to conduct the dive, requiring 'adult' supervision on their dives, etc...

Criticism of the basic OW course falls into 2 camps I hear:

1.) That the course doesn't have enough content (e.g.: it ought to contain the AOW and Nitrox course material plus some from Rescue Diver) to turn out competent divers.
2.) That it does contain enough content, when properly taught, but often isn't properly taught.

If option 2.) is the main problem (judge for yourself), I question whether adding content is going to fix that.

People can't agree on the objective - what an OW diver must be at a minimum, fresh out of training. Must he/she be ready to independently navigate a multi-level reef dive and return near the boat without 'turtling?' If so, a lot of OW divers don't rate their cert. card. Is it necessary to be competent and simple to moderately complex buddy rescue? Should you know a little deco. procedure in case you accidentally exceed your NDL? Just how sharp should your buoyancy control be?

Training has to be modular, but how much 'stuff' is to be crammed into module 1? I'm okay with the present standard, but wish more people knew what more they can benefit from doing (and may need to know).

If I were retired and independently wealthy living near the coast, I'd be interested in seeing if L.A. County's Advanced Diver Program is still being offered, or maybe GUE Fundamentals (for training; I'm not at that level and may never be). But I'm not. So bite-sized pieces, please.

Richard.

 

[KenGordon]

BSAC was modularizing their content, at least spitting off various levels of side-skills (say Boat1/2/3, Nitrox1/2) from being locked to an overall level of progression. That looks interesting. But does not break up/reduce the OW level. There was a nice spreadsheet of what (Skill Development Courses) went where, but I can't find it again. Just the general progression and 'specialties' chart. Document

What you have there is the modularised version with initial training broken into Ocean Diver and Sports Diver. Previously (40 years ago) the initial training was to “Third Class” which is approximately Rescue plus deco. The sheer quantity of training meant completion was difficult and forced trainee divers to be subservient for a long time.

Sports Diver is still a big lump of work. A pool lesson on rescue, classroom resuscitation, more theory, six open water lessons and a load of diving is required. It takes a season. At the end you have someone capable of U.K. diving though, and that really is the point. It is a significant barrier though, and a lightweight depth extending thing like AOW followed by the rest would be easier from a diving organisational point of view. Having a bunch of club members only able to dive to 20m is awkward.

 

[MichaelMc]

What you have there is the modularised version with initial training broken into Ocean Diver and Sports Diver.

Thanks. The "Diver Training Programme review" I knew about was apparently started in 2017. I did not realize it was changing stuff from the 80s. It just seemed like they had another graphic from the discussions explaining the plan that was somehow more informative. Maybe as it put the modules with the levels that they used to go with.

Diver Training Programme review
FAQs

 

[KenGordon]

Thanks. The "Diver Training Programme review" I knew about was apparently started in 2017. I did not realize it was changing stuff from the 80s. It just seemed like they had another graphic from the discussions explaining the plan that was somehow more informative. Maybe as it put the modules with the levels that they used to go with.

Diver Training Programme review
FAQs

The 2017 review was just of the current-ish DTP which is mostly from mid 2000s. Prior to that there has been one or two versions with the initial grade being the sort of simplified thing we see today. Today’s Ocean Diver was Novice Diver in the 1990s and a late reaction to PADI killing clubs by offering quick and (apparently) easy training. There were changes in 2007 which incorporated nitrox into both Ocean Diver and Sports Diver.

The 2017 Ocean Diver is a slightly shuffled update to better fit the needs of commercial providers. In particular it has four open water lessons rather than five so that part can be done in a single weekend. They claim it is more modular but really it is that each lesson is formally in several parts and those can be tracked directly in the paperwork. Previously you needed to remember how far someone got or redo a whole lesson. Evolution rather than revolution.

These reviews have also changed the requirements at higher levels. Dive Leader has more in it than it did in the 90s, Advanced Diver is harder too. Those are still a bit old school, “make them work for it” sorts of things that take years. It is easier to do CCR from scratch to 100m hypoxic trimix than DL to AD. What this means though is that if someone is one of these grades, especially if done in the last 10 years, they have done a load of diving and ought to know what they are doing, like a proper grown up.

Many of the SDCs are geared towards the practical needs of clubs. Often they have compressors or boats and need a way to bring on new members using them. Other than Jacob Rees-Mogg, nobody is born with an understanding of the layout of a late Victorian ship etc. Often these do have a logical ‘basic’ version, like working a compressor, and then a bit more advanced one, such as mixing trimix. So the usual BSAC idea of ‘progression’ applies. On Facebook recently there was a thread about bringing up an unconscious diver in a drysuit from deeper than 18m. A whole bunch of people got on the thread with crackpot theories about how this should be done. In the BSAC system it is taught at progressively deeper depths at each level of qualification, starting with Ocean Diver “Be able to recover an incapacitated diver to the surface and summon help”, at Advanced Diver the CBL is from 20m. Most of the diving skills are repeats of previous ones but done deeper or in slightly more challenging conditions. The new skills are usually dry organisational ones, planning or managing things.

 

[Edward3c]

BSAC was modularizing their content, at least spitting off various levels of side-skills (say Boat1/2/3, Nitrox1/2) from being locked to an overall level of progression. That looks interesting. But does not break up/reduce the OW level. There was a nice spreadsheet of what (Skill Development Courses)went where, but I can't find it again. Just the general progression and 'specialties' chart. Document

The modular move in BSAC training isn’t braking the course down to smaller certifications, but allowing individual parts of a lesson to be signed off. For example, in the second open water lesson students will demonstrate compliance in:
* assembling their kit, kitting up, entering the water and doing a vertical descent,
* performing a Controlled Buoyancy Lift from 6m,
* towing a casualty to safety, 10-20m,
* doing an exploratory dive achieving 12-15m depth,
* buoyancy control and finning action,
* controlled vertical ascent, exiting the water and dekitting their rig.

The modular element is where a student doesn’t complete all the bits, they can be signed off so at their next training session - likely to be with another instructor - they don’t have to repeat them.

 

[The Chairman]

For what it's worth, I don't see modular training as a shop or agency being greedy. Dive certification is below bargain basement prices. It was often used as a loss leader to get divers in the shop to buy gear. Scuba is an expensive hobby and the entry price point is pretty high as it is. Doubling or tripling the price of the initial training would result in far fewer people taking up the sport. That would result in even less gear being sold and would result in an implosion of the sport.

 

[Storker]

My issue with the concept is having the first bite sized peice, and having it considered the whole cow. The four day resort class gets the same OW card as the three month university class. The resort class would be like taking a Cavern class and given a Full Cave cert, because they can take the "bite sized" training later.

Problem is, how much of the whole cow is retained? I say give'em bite-sized pieces in several servings and don't pretend they've eaten a whole cow.

I'm not convinced that today's students get a cert saying they've eaten a whole cow, though. And I'm equally not convinced that everything was better in the good ole' days.

I was a late bloomer and certified PADI OW in '12. I have no idea about the standard of training in the "good" old days, and I readily admit that there are things about today's training that could have been better. But I'm not so sure it was so much better back then. And it's all up to the diver. Training just leads the horse to the water.

 

[markmud]

The four day resort class gets the same OW card as the three month university class.

Have and enforce restrictions on the cert, say OW 60' Resort. Or better completely rename the progression of certification and enforce the restrictions at each level.

Hi Bob,
You and I are on the same wavelength. I am not upset with the training that I received as 2/3rds of my instructors were really excellent. They were also honest about the restrictions on what and how they could teach as they had liability issues. When I wasn't training with them, they were completely honest about diving in general and the industry in particular.

My issue is that there was no clear goal or target for me to attain. I wanted to be trained to a point where, with little or no check-out diving from a dive op, I could go dive advanced sites, with or without a DM. Whatever the dive op required as far as supervision, I am OK with that-- I like diving with DMs. They know where the cool stuff is. Take me to the cool sites without the BS.

There is no path that gives a diver that access unless they are an instructor, I suppose.

As you wrote, rename the certs and then enforce the standards. If I am granted an OW Supervised Cert, I am good with that, as long as the DM supervising me can log skills practiced, log improvement in buoyancy, and log everything else that transforms an OW diver into an accomplished diver. Next, I go get more training. And at the end of the process I am awarded a real scuba diver cert. A cert that means something. Means something to every dive-op out there.

For what it's worth, I don't see modular training as a shop or agency being greedy. Dive certification is below bargain basement prices. It was often used as a loss leader to get divers in the shop to buy gear.

As a former business owner, I can totally agree with your statement. Most people are involved in the scuba industry because they like it, not because they plan on getting rich.

My criticism of the current system does not mean that I think it needs to be radically changed or revolutionized. Please, incorporate some honesty in the system. OW is not the end all cert, and nobody said it was. But at what point is a diver trained and experienced well enough to jump on a fresh boat and dive advanced recreational sites (with or without supervision)? Is it when I have earned an instructor cert, or a full cave tech cert?

My wife has a Master Scuba Diver cert, that hasn't helped her. I have a tech 40 and solo cert, and they have helped marginally.

What is that magic cert? No more beat-up shallow reefs for me--I would rather drop-out.

Modularization is fine, as long as I know the end game.

cheers,
m

 

[MichaelMc]

My issue is that there was no clear goal or target for me to attain. I wanted to be trained to a point where, with little or no check-out diving from a dive op, I could go dive advanced sites, with or without a DM

What is that magic cert?

BSAC 'Dive Leader'? It has leader in the name... ?? Though harder to get out of the UK.
I'm not sure if Dive Leader has the same 'add them to the initial lawsuit list' as DM/AI does, as the BSAC legal structure might be a bit different. I would be surprised it Dive Leaders did not need to be covered under the umbrella BSAC club policy. BSAC "Advanced Diver" would likely not work, despite being more advanced, as it sounds like AOW.

Is your wife's Master Scuba Diver cert a 'took 5 classes, 50 dives' one or a 'specific class' (NAUI) one? Hoping to avoid triggering a MSD debate. But curious which had no effect.

NAUI has a non-pro 'training assistant' cert that says you know enough to assist in training others. It requires Rescue, first aid, and CPR. And teaches some basics of assisting with students and problem responses. Training Assistant | NAUI Worldwide. Dive Safety Through Education
You can "temporarily directly supervise students while an instructor conducts skills with other students; escort students on the surface or on underwater tours; and assist an active-status NAUI Instructor with other tasks, all under the direction of a NAUI Instructor." It is sort of a corner case though in terns of available certs.

 

[markmud]

BSAC 'Dive Leader'? It has leader in the name... ?? Though harder to get out of the UK.

I'm not sure if Dive Leader has the same 'add them to the initial lawsuit list' as DM/AI does, as the BSAC legal structure might be a bit different. I would be surprised it Dive Leaders did not need to be covered under the umbrella BSAC club policy. BSAC "Advanced Diver" would likely not work, despite being more advanced, as it sounds like AOW.

Is your wife's Master Scuba Diver cert a 'took 5 classes, 50 dives' one or a 'specific class' (NAUI) one? Hoping to avoid triggering a MD debate. But curious which had no effect.

NAUI has a non-pro 'training assistant' cert that says you know enough to assist in training others. It requires Rescue, first aid, and CPR. And teaches some basics of assisting with students and problem responses. Training Assistant | NAUI Worldwide. Dive Safety Through Education
You can "temporarily directly supervise students while an instructor conducts skills with other students; escort students on the surface or on underwater tours; and assist an active-status NAUI Instructor with other tasks, all under the direction of a NAUI Instructor." It is sort of a corner case though in terns of available certs.

Hi MC,

I don't want to lead divers or instruct divers. I want to dive all recreational sites, from easy to advanced with a minimum of BS. I like boat diving and I like travelling. I don't mind diving with DMs in groups. I like solo diving.

The time and money to become an instructor is a total waste for me. Same with DM. I want to be a certified recreational ocean scuba diver--the problem is, in reality, it does not exist. The industry treats all as the lowest common denominator, no matter how good or bad you are.

Is there a liability insurance policy that indemnifies dive ops if I get skin bends, or touch fire coral, or a lionfish, or I get lost? Yeah, I did not think so.

The product that the dive industry is selling does not meet its warrant of merchantability. Unless a person shore dives or dives off a private boat. In reality, that person does not need to be certified--no scuba police after all (I don't recommend that at all).

My wife is PADI MSD.

cheers mate,
m