When Do You Say No?

[BottomDweller]

For you recreational instructors: what are some circumstances or student diver characteristics that would cause you to not certify an open water student? Have any of you done this? I ask only from curiosity and after seeing various levels of competency (and lack thereof) of newly certified divers over the past summer. I read in a magazine article of one instructor who asked a student to leave his class for coming in drunk for two separate sessions - that would be one example.

[theskull]

A diver generally gets certified if he successfully performs the required survival skills while in simple, often ideal, circumstances -- immediately after having been briefed on exactly what will be asked and required.

This in no way implies that the diver will demonstrate a level of competency in diving. It simply gives a high probability of survival.

We always hope that the student will go on to practice and go diving with people who will further their level of skill and enjoyment.

theskull

[BottomDweller]

So except for blatant, obvious failure to perform skills in the circumstances you describe, a student will virtually always be awarded certification. Possible exceptions being, like I mentioned, a student who acts in a manner that's obviously unsafe for him, his fellow students, or his instructor, like the drunk student I mentioned at first.

I understand this; I guess I was just wondering how often it happens that an instructor is just so uncomfortable with a student's performance that he or she won't certify that student. Evidently this is pretty rare.

[theskull]

I'm only an Assistant Instructor, but have assisted in and been around hundreds of students getting certified. To date I am only aware of one student who completed the class and did not receive OW certification, and that was for refusal to do mask remove/replace on the final training dive.

theskull

[Charlie19]

Almost all of the Open Water instructors I have worked with have always stressed to the students that their Open Water certification is actually a permit to practice the skills covered in the class until they have attained a reasonable mastering of those skills.

They are encouraged to dive frequently after initial certification in order to reinforce those skills and the disciipline of proper dive planning. Of course, the best way to do this is to dive with experienced divers who can continually demonstrate sound diving practices to these new divers.

Having said this, it is the challenge of being an instructor to know just where to draw the line between one who has obviously not "mastered" the skills, but is, in the instructor's judgment, sufficiently proficient with them to be able to dive and further perfect their technique. If Open Water class graduates had to have mastered the skills, who could afford the cost and time such a standard would require?

[scubado]

In 13 years of teaching I've never "failed" students but have told quite a few that they needed more time and practice before I would certify them. This includes the young woman who is now my daughter-in-law (I was really unpopular for that one). In some cases, the folks who needed more time and practice returned and were eventually able to master the skills with confidence. In some other cases the folks confided in me that perhaps diving isn't really for them. Point is that I left the ultimate decision to them. If they were willing to spend the time to work to an adequate comfort level, I was willing to continue to work with them.

I've always tried to look at the students and say "is this person ready to dive w/o a trained professional and will they injure themself or others?". There have been several situations where folks were close on their skills and comfort and they've been given scuba diving certifications (they can dive, but only with a pro).

Tough decsions to make (but I guess that's why we're paid the big bucks).

that's my two cents.

[DeepDiverBob]

I have only seen one student not get their OW cert, and he was a kid. He went to the pool, and practiced more "skills" before trying OW again. I heard he later achieved it.

I have worked classes, where after wards, I have said pin private to the instructor, glad your name will be on the card, and not mine.

I dont know about the other agencies, but in my opinion ,and from what I ahve seen, I think specialty and advanced certs are given out too easily, too. I have heard many instructors say in their classes, you are buying instruction, not the cert. But more times than bot, in my opinion, that doesnt seem to be the case.

Side note- I am not speaking about my shop, or anyone elses shop. I like to observe other classes when I am out fun diving.

[BottomDweller]

Thanks for all the responses. Several good points made, including that of stressing to the student that their OW certification is just the beginning. I think (I hope) most newly certified divers would understand that they need to practice and improve. I know I did.

[Charlie19]

Just as a follow-up to my previous post, one excellent opportunity for new divers to hone their skills and have a lot of fun at the same time, is coming up this weekend at Table Rock Lake. They are holding the annual lake clean-up event, Project Aware the 13th and 14th.

There is a thread on this website that explains all about it. In the past the sponsors (mainly Scuba Sports in Branson) have provided free food at noon on Saturday and free air fills. This is an excellent chance for new divers to meet others and have fun finding--who knows what--around the docks etc.

I hope to see many of you there.

[BottomDweller]

I really wish I could be there, but I'll be in the pool all day Saturday and the classroom on Sunday. Is this event on the same weekend every year?

[theskull]

I really wish I could be there, but I'll be in the pool all day Saturday and the classroom on Sunday. Is this event on the same weekend every year?

Yes, in fact Project AWARE is a world-wide event that takes place on the same weekend each year.

Locally, however, the Table Rock event is in danger of going away. Scuba Sports has new owners who are not showing much interest in it, and I also must admit that Table Rock is no longer in great need of cleaning up. We used to pull up boat loads of trash with little effort; now we have to search for it. Of course, this is a good thing!!

theskull

[BottomDweller]

Table Rock is no longer in great need of cleaning up. We used to pull up boat loads of trash with little effort; now we have to search for it. Of course, this is a good thing!!

theskull

A very good thing, indeed!

[chris_thompson98]

I talked to scuba sports yesterday, They had said that they cancled it and now they put it back on. The lady I talked to said that they were trying to get thier move done and everything up and running at thier new location. Also said that the city of Branson was being dificult about getting the new owners retail license.

She said they put it back on becuase they had so many people say they were allready planning on comming down.

They are trying to line out as many boats as possible to take people out.
I hope that it's just that they were busy with thier move, and not that they dont want to do it anymore. Im really looking fordward to it.

[reefraff]

Students never fail though sometimes they don't meet the objectives. This is an important distinction - not passing the class doesn't mean that they're going to have to endure a lifetime of golf, just that they need to keep working at it if they want to get the card.

Four of the eighteen Open Water Diver students I have started this year have not been able to complete. This is about normal:

One ended up with a Scuba Diver rating - has to dive with professional supervision.
One is out due to a medical problem but should return soon.
One had problems with the knowledge development part of the class and will probably never complete.
One had problems with the skill development portion of the class and will probably never complete.

Additionally, of those that I certified:

One required additional time in the pool to work on skill development but earned an OWD card.
One required additional time in open water to work on skill development but earned an OWD card.


Three of the six were minors.

The biggest reason people fail is because they don't want to dive. It always amazes me how many people who really don't like the idea of scuba diving go ahead and sign up for the class because somebody important in their life wants them to.

The second biggest reason people fail is because they are too young. Most of these students would do fine if they would only wait a couple of years. Unfortunately, starting too early sometimes gives them a bad taste that they can never shake.

[BottomDweller]

Thanks for the reply, Reefraff! It's funny you mention that about the ones who don't complete the course are the ones who don't want to be there. I stopped by my dive shop today and was talking to the owner for awhile, and we got onto that very topic. He said in all the years he's been teaching, he's withheld certification just a handful of times. The reasons those folks didn't get certified, at least the ones he told me about, were as you describe. One was a lady who had no interest in it, but her very pushy husband was insisting that she learn. Another was a young kid whose parents were pushing him into it.

He also told me about another interesting student, though. This was a guy who signed up for the course with his wife and was concerned about how well his wife would do. The guy wasn't concerned about himself - he'd wanted to learn to dive for a long time. When they got to the pool, however, the wife did fine. The guy, on the other hand, crawled out of the pool on his hands and knees and got physically sick. He'd gotten completely over-anxious. After he took a shower and got cleaned up, he laid down while the class finished the day's pool work. Then the instructor talked to him and the guy said he couldn't believe this was happening. He really wanted to finish but couldn't understand why he was having so much trouble. The instructor told him if he really wanted to continue, he'd work with him and take all the time he needed. He ended up doing three more separate pool sessions, but finally made it through, and got through his open waters with a lot of TLC, as well. Today he's a good, safe diver.

I guess I don't understand the number of people who sign up for something as intensive as scuba diving when they really don't want to. But apparently there are a lot of them.

[chris_thompson98]

I was kinda anxious the first time I went down in the lake. It was a totaly new feeling for me, And there was only about 1 foot of viz on table rock that day cause there was probably 50-75 people doing thier OW at dewy short. I had trouble sinking cause I was breathing so hard I had to much air in me. So I can deffently say I know what its like to be anxious. I didnet go as far as thowring up on myself thank god.
And ofcourse my wife who was the most worried about doing it did just fine and had no issues at all. :confused: Guess thats how it works. ;)

[DeepDiverBob]

Since we are sharing our tales of woe, I will share mine. Some of you have probably heard it already. I almost didnt show up for day 2 of the pool session. I wasnt having any issues with the skills or anything, but I was over heated, miserable and not having fun. I didnt know a 3 mil, from a 7 mil from a dry suit. They had us in a pool with nearly 90 degree water, and had me in a 7 mil from 8-5 on saturday. I made up my mind I wasnt going back on Sunday to finish, it wasnt worth it. It just so happened, I woke up for no reason early on Sunday, and decided I would go anyway and finish, because I had paid for it. When I got there, everybody else was complaining about it as well, so they told us we didnt have to wear a wet suit if we didnt want to. The rest, as they say, is history.

[laurie12r]

lol @ Bob's story! Why in the world would they have you in 7mil suits in 90 degree water?!?! LOL I would have been miserable too!

[BottomDweller]

They had us in a pool with nearly 90 degree water, and had me in a 7 mil from 8-5 on saturday.

Oh, my! I bet you lost a few pounds in sweat that day. That would be horrible! What were they thinking?! The pool we use is around 79 degrees and a 7 mm is too hot there; I can't imagine being stuck in one in 90 degree water for an entire day.

[M&P+4]

I have to wonder how many folks go from their open water straight into advanced and how many dives most shops require (if any) before signing up students. I was along on an AOW deep dive with someone that tried it straight out of OW and managed to drop off a ledge that started about 65'....I caught her at 84' and the bottom was no where in sight. We checked it out a couple weekends later and found bottom between 120' and 125'.

Has anyone ever not passed someone for AOW?

[DeepDiverBob]

Not uncommon at all for peolpe to move from OW to AOW class. As a matter of fact, it is seemed to be highly encouraged. I disagree with that philosophy, but I'm just a DM, so my opinion doesnt count for much.

[reefraff]

I used to suggest that new divers wait awhile before taking AOW but not any more. Frankly, I think the sooner new divers take the course, the more they get from it.

One of the most important keys to learning is repetition and new divers need all the practice they can get. I think the benefits of five more dives with an instructor as soon as possible after OW are a better idea than the frustration that often sets in when dealing with the steep learning curve and the bad habits that I see creeping into new divers still-not-set routines. Besides, what better way to make sure a newby doesn't bottom out in 120ft of water than to have an instructor along?

[MgicTwnger]

my opinion doesnt count for much.

So true.........

[Charlie19]

I too don't think it is a good idea to encourage newly certified divers to immediately press on to the Advanced level for these reasons.
1. Buoyancy control. This is the most important skill in scuba diving, and it is rarely mastered by Open Water students. The importance of this skill is magnified exponentially by the depth of the dive. A bolt to the surface is serious at 20 feet, but it can be fatal at 90. One previous post mentioned the necessity of repetition of the skills, and that is surely true, but that repetition needs to be in the depths (even though OW students are certified to 60', their OW training has rarely gone below 25') where their training occurred and under the same conditions as their training. Only gradually should one expand or extend those criteria.

Further, AOW only amounts to 5 dives. Four of them are in the same relative depths of OW class ( 0 to 25'). It's very rare for an instructor to stage the navigation dive, the search and recovery dive, and the night dive in water deeper than 20'. In fact the only dive below 60' is the deep dive and I've seen it only go to 70', just deep enough to meet the requirement of the certifying agency.

2. Air consumption. The difference between air consumption at 100' is drastically different than that at 20-25'. And to put new divers into the 60-120' range when they just have 4 dives in the 0-60' range (and ralistically, probably only 1 dive below 30') seems to me to be a dangerous practice because it gives a new diver a false sense of confidence.

I know that many of you will be able to cite many divers who had many deep dives before they even took the AOW class and only did it because AOW is a requirement for a cert. they wanted, i.e. Nitrox, Deco procedures, etc. But if so, they broke standards when they did so. I'm writing specifically about the new diver who has just completed OW training and is urged to immediately move on to AOW certification.

[ppo2_diver]

I have never "failed" someone for a recreational course. I have had many, many instances where people needed extra work. I've also had people say diving wasn't for them and stop in mid-course. Scuba courses are performance based and people should be given as much time as needed to perform at the mastery level.

I too think people shouldn't jump right into AOW after their OW course. The AOW course is meant to add additional skills and more task loading. If someone isn't squared away with their fundamental skill sets, then they will have a difficult time with AOW. If people need additional dives with an instructor, why not add a few more dives to their OW class? The AOW course shouldn't be about remediation of OW skills or general comfort levels. That is what the OW course is for.

The OW certification allows people to dive, unsupervised, in open water conditions. If the instructor doesn't feel that the student isn't comfortable on their own (i.e. in a buddy team), then they shouldn't be certified until they are capable of diving without a dive pro present.

[BottomDweller]

I'm one of those divers who went to the AOW class the spring following my fall completion of OW. I was diving with PADI at the time, and I found the additional training beneficial. Buoyancy was one of the dives I did for my AOW cert, as was nav, night, deep, and search and recovery. It was all good experience and I'm glad I did it.

Since then, however, I've been working more with an SSI shop, since it's closer to my home and their schedule fits mine better. SSI's AOW certification requires completion of specialties rather than an assortment of individual dives. There are no specific specialties required, but by working toward some specialties you're both working with an instructor and getting several more dives in, and those dives are in a variety of settings.

I guess my experience has made me appreciate the benefits of going straight to an AOW course from OW, but I understand the reasoning behind not doing so, too. I think the extra learning and practice time with supervision is more beneficial than just going out and diving on one's own and potentially learning bad habits, though, so I lean more towards being in favor of it.

As with the OW training, much depends on the instructor and, to some extent, the certification agency. Hopefully the instructor will emphasize personal responsibility to the student and, during training, encourage the student to do things on his/her own rather than expecting the instructor to hold his/her hand. That way the student learns good habits from the instructor and is supervised while learning, but is still expected to know how to do all the basics himself/herself.

[M&P+4]

Not uncommon at all for peolpe to move from OW to AOW class. As a matter of fact, it is seemed to be highly encouraged. I disagree with that philosophy, but I'm just a DM, so my opinion doesnt count for much.

I still don't have mine after five years and 140 dives - not that I haven't done all the dives necessary to get it, just not a coordinated effort to get the card. I would think that most folks would/should want to get 10-15 hours of bottom time minimum before moving into AOW....but what do I know, I'm just an OW!

[theskull]

I still don't have mine after five years and 140 dives - not that I haven't done all the dives necessary to get it, just not a coordinated effort to get the card. I would think that most folks would/should want to get 10-15 hours of bottom time minimum before moving into AOW....but what do I know, I'm just an OW!

Dude, buy the card; us pros need to make a living! LOL!

theskull

[reefraff]

I think the extra learning and practice time with supervision is more beneficial than just going out and diving on one's own and potentially learning bad habits, though, so I lean more towards being in favor of it.

Nicely said. Some folks eventually do fine on their own but many don't. Everyone will improve more and more quickly with some help, however. It really is that simple.

I too think people shouldn't jump right into AOW after their OW course. The AOW course is meant to add additional skills and more task loading. If someone isn't squared away with their fundamental skill sets, then they will have a difficult time with AOW. If people need additional dives with an instructor, why not add a few more dives to their OW class? The AOW course shouldn't be about remediation of OW skills or general comfort levels. That is what the OW course is for.
If they have the skills, they're ready for AOW. If they didn't get the skills during OW, the odds that they're going to develop them on their own are vanishingly small. It doesn't help to get hung up on whose fault it was that they didn't develop them during OW - the problem still needs to be addressed, lest they get hurt or quit diving out of frustration. It also doesn't matter what we call the remediation process: Fun Dives with your Instructor or OW2 or AOW or DIRF, the point remains to get them in the water and give them the help they need.

In reality, I have yet to see a new diver that wasn't still struggling with many basic skills, including my students, who normally end up with five or six dives over the course of their training weekend instead of the required four. Take buoyancy, for instance. Mastering the fin pivot and the hover and being able to control ascents and descents are only a few of the buoyancy skills that solid divers have mastered, the rest simply aren't part part of the OW curriculum. I've seen first hand how much better (and more comfortable) new divers are after the AOW buoyancy dive - and how many divers that don't take the ensuing class never really square these skills away.

Of course AOW is about comfort levels. Every class is about comfort levels. Developing the knowledge and skills to be comfortable, safe and proficient is the only reason to take any class.

I still don't have mine after five years and 140 dives - not that I haven't done all the dives necessary to get it, just not a coordinated effort to get the card. I would think that most folks would/should want to get 10-15 hours of bottom time minimum before moving into AOW....but what do I know, I'm just an OW!

Here's another reason to encourage new divers to take AOW soon after OW - I don't know M&P+4 and have never seen him/her dive but there are too many new divers that never progress beyond OW. It's been my experience that the dividing line between guppy and diver lies at the end of the Rescue course - before that they can't be trusted to be self-sufficient and they're going to be close to worthless if somebody else needs help.

Divers need to understand that continuing education isn't simply a conspiracy to suck money out of their wallet but also the way to truly become a fully-fledged, comfortable, safe and proficient diver. That may be the biggest lesson that AOW teaches - that there is a whole world of diving out there and that the skills they learned in OW are only the first step of what should be a long and happy process.

[BottomDweller]

That may be the biggest lesson that AOW teaches - that there is a whole world of diving out there and that the skills they learned in OW are only the first step of what should be a long and happy process.

Great point.

[M&P+4]

Here's another reason to encourage new divers to take AOW soon after OW - I don't know M&P+4 and have never seen him/her dive but there are too many new divers that never progress beyond OW. It's been my experience that the dividing line between guppy and diver lies at the end of the Rescue course - before that they can't be trusted to be self-sufficient and they're going to be close to worthless if somebody else needs help.

A point well taken, but I'm probably an exception to the typical diver that doesn't progress past OW. 25% of my dives are with the instructor that certified me. I've done a couple deep dives, wreck dive, a couple navigation courses, search and recovery and under the ice with him, but usually just tagging along with another class just to go diving. I also help out with OW classes just for an excuse to go diving (yes, even in the pool). The biggest reason I haven't progressed thru the certifications is my call rotation but ultimatley would like to be able to instruct some day....probably after kids though!

Even with the experiences that I've had though, my OW cert covers the type of diving I prefer the most - above 30 feet where the fish are.

Lyle