Talk:Advanced Open Water Diver

Night Dive 2006
Hey guys, in the Certification area its state that ''Until 2006, night diving was also mandatory, but this is no longer the case. It was dropped at the request of the Scandinavian countries, for whom there is almost no night during the summer months when most of the diving is done, as it created an unreasonable restriction on certifying advanced divers (which is a prerequisite for further training). Most other countries still recommend the night diver course''. I cant find any source of this, tried to go through the training bulletins of that period from PADI without any success. I add an source is needed in the sentence. If some of you has the info you can edit or bring it here..

Thanks! - May 2020

Comments
Looking at the PADI curriculum (as described in the PADI Instructor Manual), a few things become obvious regarding the "Advanced" cource:

1. During entry level training (Open Water, not Scuba Diver), the scuba diver is trained in taking care of himself in normal (maintain bouyancy, respond to hand signals, keep within table limits etc) and "should be expected" types of emergency situations (like equipment malfunction, running out of air, leaky mask, lost regulator).

2. During AOW training, the student is trained to perform tasks non-essential to primary scuba diving, like diving from a boat, taking pictures, search and rescue, dry suit diving, altitude diving, peak performance bouyancy, deeper diving, night diving, drift diving, underwater navigation.

Therefore, the AOW training promotes ADVANCING the scuba diver's skills, but the training is not really "Advanced", mainly because while the scuba diver is introduced to skills required for solving specific tasks, there are really no parts of the curriculum that focuses on really advanced skills, like rescue diving and leading divers. Furthermore, there is no real stress training.

In addition, different "Advanced" divers will have different "advanced" skills. According to the PADI instructor manual, there are two core dives that they all must have: The deep dive (30 meters) and navigational dive. The remaining 3 dives can be choosen from any of a high number of optional dives. A diver choosing "Dry Suit", "Peak Performance Bouyancy" and "Search and Rescue" will have a fundamentally different skills sets from one choosing "Project Aware", "Boat diver" and "Underwater Photography".

"SCUBA SKILLS ADVANCEMENT" is in fact a much more descriptive title than "ADVANCED OPEN WATER DIVER", because the students really aren't that advanced and their learnt skills will vary greatly. "Advanced" is syntactically correct only after completing appropriate "RESCUE DIVER" training where complexity, advanced procedures, judgement and stress mastering is part of the training and the curriculum is much more fixed.

Weasel tag
There is a weasel tag on the "Advanced" name controversy. Whilst that section is not well written, I don't think it is that weaseley - this is a fairly open source of discussion, and the fact that BSAC and NAUI both modified their names to follow PADI is clear evidence of cause and effect. I have put in a bit of source material (including the infamour UK coroner's court decision slamming PADI's AOW course), but I will try and tidy that section up more generally at a later stage. --Legis (talk - contribs) 13:26, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Do we need a separate page for NAUI? (Advanced Scuba Diver)
It seems like this page is very PADI-oriented. Would creating a separate page for the NAUI-specific Advanced Scuba Diver help solve this problem? Daemyth (talk) 20:41, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Sourced information on differences might be appropriate in this article. The article is not titled PADI Advanced open water diver, it is intended to be generic. &bull; &bull; &bull; Peter (Southwood) (talk): 05:02, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

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B-Class review
Quite a long way to go. &bull; &bull; &bull; Peter (Southwood) (talk): 15:14, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Stick to Facts, not Opinions
Under topics, someone wrote this as the final sentence:

These dives are purported to represent introductory knowledge and skills,[6] but it is also suggested (as demonstrated under "Your Next Adventure"[7]) that they serve primarily to provide an opportunity to sell the student on a future specialty course.[citation needed]

While that may be true, this is conjecture and opinion and, IMHO opinion, does not belong in a wikipedia article.

If we want to talk about opinion, I can share mine: I found the Advanced Open Water Diver a good experience. It advanced my skills and introduced me to what could come next. It was a clear, logical stepping stone and put me in front of an instructor to help guide me a little. One can complain about the title of the course if they want, but that's outside the scope of wikipedia.

As there is no citation for this opinion, I am rewritting this sentence to be less opinionated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jplflyer (talk • contribs) 21:46, 30 October 2017 (UTC)
 * That's fair comment, as we really need to have independent reliable sources to draw conclusions about PADI's motivation in offering the AOWD course. Complaining about the title of the course actually is in the scope of Wikipedia if there are reliable third-party sources that discuss the issue. Find the sources first, of course, and only then can we write about it.
 * Your changes are an improvement, but – if you don't mind me saying so – are a little too enthusiastic. Nobody is going to "fine-tune" skills like navigation or buoyancy over a mere handful of dives, so I've toned that down a bit. Also, the encyclopedic tone demands that we don't address the reader in the second person. As soon as you start writing "you", you're out of step with the style used here. I hope you'll find my copyedit acceptable and perhaps even helpful. --RexxS (talk) 22:08, 30 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Your changes are an improvement, but – if you don't mind me saying so – are a little too enthusiastic. Nobody is going to "fine-tune" skills like navigation or buoyancy over a mere handful of dives, so I've toned that down a bit. Also, the encyclopedic tone demands that we don't address the reader in the second person. As soon as you start writing "you", you're out of step with the style used here. I hope you'll find my copyedit acceptable and perhaps even helpful. --RexxS (talk) 22:08, 30 October 2017 (UTC)


 * I had actually cut and pasted from the PADI "Myth Busting" page (which was already cited), and thus the words, "According to PADI". Perhaps I should have used quotes to be more clear. Jplflyer (talk) 04:48, 2 November 2017 (UTC)