PADI instructor training

Whilst I have been known to criticise PADI (Professional Association of Diving Instructors) on occasions; I must say, their system of instructor development is pretty much world class. Their instructor development system is educationally correct built on the foundations of adult learning theory.

Likewise, their printed training materials are not only educationally sound, they are of a high quality, their interactive learning resources are world class and visual presentations for the best part hit the mark. The PADI videos while attempting to meet the needs of visual learners do tend to be a bit cluttered and contain subliminal advertising reducing their effectiveness somewhat. Needless to say, the PADI learning materials are generally of a high standard in presentation and quality.

So, the learning materials are no issue, the focus now moves to the instructor learning process, this involves academic, confined water and open water teaching presentations. Initial instructor academic development is similar to standard diver development, that is, read the text book, answer the review questions and review the given answers. However, instructor course material then differs, teaching presentations then align to learning how to teach.

From here onwards; the instructor candidates focus on teaching practice, that is actual instruction, what they do not engage in is a review of teaching methodology, instructional design or alternate teaching methods. This is less of a case of independence and academic freedom and more a case of follow our system and you will be right.

The course reviews the PADI range of dive courses from experience, entry-level, continuing education, specialty programs and entry-level (non-instructional).

Much of the focus of the instructor course then moves to the confined water and open water presentations and evaluations. This is the in-water portion of the program, these days the instructor development course has been reduced to 7 days, that is 4 days for the assistant instructor course and 3 days for the instructor development course, a far cry from the 14 day course I undertook back in 2001.

The instructor candidate is evaluated throughout the whole 7 days by the instructor trainer known as a Course Director before PADI themselves come out to independently assess the competence of the instructor candidate over the course of an evening and two days (usually a weekend).

The evaluation begins on the first evening with a series of written tests that include physics, physiology, dive table use, dive programs and finally dive equipment. Then an open book standards test is administered to identify individual course standards in the instructor manual.

At the completion of the written examinations, the academic topics, confined water and open water tasks are handed out. Candidates must then go home and prepare two academic micro-teaching presentations, two confined water and two open water skills they must present.

The next day sees all candidates in confined water teaching two diver skills with the other candidates as students. The evaluator is in the water with the candidate and orders the instructor candidate and assistant to duck their heads below the water while problems are handed out to the students to encounter.

The object is for the instructor candidate to solve the in-water problems, failure to do so will result in a fail, some students are instructed to perform the skills correctly, this mimics what occurs in a real world class.

The instructor development course has been shortened, this is a concern, especially for potential candidates with sometimes less than 100 dives, many candidates complete their 100 dive minimum during the course. In direct comparison to myself, I had over 750 dives before starting my instructor course.

Of that, I had over 250 dives before beginning my divemaster training so I had slightly over 500 working dives experience earned over two full seasons as a divemaster and assistant instructor. A classmate had over 2000 dives as an underwater guide, the other ten members of my course however barely met minimum levels, the actual dive skills were sadly lacking of most candidates.

As a former dive store owner, I employer a number of instructors straight out of their instructor examination - they were not job ready and much internal training was required, as a small centre, we didn't have the resources to train instructors, I performed much of the in-house training myself.

These newly certified instructors were not ready to independently supervise and instruct dive students, I was then forced to act as an assistant to the instructor to directly supervise their class, this isn't to just learn the shop procedures, this was a competency issue. No dive store owner I know would employ a newly certified dive instructor with 100 dives and expect them to teach a class effectively unsupervised.