DL lectures and exam

[gareth jones]

I've recently become involved in helping with some of the instruction at my local BSAC branch. I've been using Dive Leader lecture notes 08/02 and the 2002 DL student manual. On reviewing the DL exam questions I was surprised to see questions on topics not covered under the DL course, namely questions on use of the BSAC 88 tables and air consumption calculations. Presumably these have been covered in the Sports Diver course, so why exam under the DL course?

[David Walker]

I've recently become involved in helping with some of the instruction at my local BSAC branch. I've been using Dive Leader lecture notes 08/02 and the 2002 DL student manual. On reviewing the DL exam questions I was surprised to see questions on topics not covered under the DL course, namely questions on use of the BSAC 88 tables and air consumption calculations. Presumably these have been covered in the Sports Diver course, so why exam under the DL course?

In dive leader all topics from OD and SD are assumed - and if you can't remember them (say you did it 5 years ago) then you need to be reexamined - just a few questions, shouldn't pose any problem. In any case, the tables questions etc are slightly more advanced, more multilevel stuff...

David

[Rich]

I've recently become involved in helping with some of the instruction at my local BSAC branch. I've been using Dive Leader lecture notes 08/02 and the 2002 DL student manual. On reviewing the DL exam questions I was surprised to see questions on topics not covered under the DL course, namely questions on use of the BSAC 88 tables and air consumption calculations. Presumably these have been covered in the Sports Diver course, so why exam under the DL course?

Just took my DL paper and after spending several months of pouring over my course notes I found the exam to be very tricky. For the course to focus so much on O2 admin, there were very few O2 related questions. And then there were several questions of scenario and what you would do in a given situation. One question was impossible to answer (this has been noted by HQ and now appears on DL paper errata) and another was very spurious. It was the question that posed the missing diver in an inland quarry, who would you call? I whittled it down to police 999 or ambulance 999 - I edged my bets and put ambulance and got it wrong. Police 999 was the answer they (HQ?) were looking for. Funny but in the DL notes on page 94 is clearly states that either/or emergency service would be ok to call.

Anyway, I passed, but I generally feel the paper was written by an experiened diver looking at it from an experienced point of view, not as a new DL student who has had just his notes and a good tutor to go by.

Rich.

[PeteM]

Just took my DL paper and after spending several months of pouring over my course notes I found the exam to be very tricky. For the course to focus so much on O2 admin, there were very few O2 related questions. And then there were several questions of scenario and what you would do in a given situation. One question was impossible to answer (this has been noted by HQ and now appears on DL paper errata) and another was very spurious. It was the question that posed the missing diver in an inland quarry, who would you call? I whittled it down to police 999 or ambulance 999 - I edged my bets and put ambulance and got it wrong. Police 999 was the answer they (HQ?) were looking for. Funny but in the DL notes on page 94 is clearly states that either/or emergency service would be ok to call.


The logic behind this one is that the Police are the co-ordinatoring authority, so if you need more than one service, search & rescue and ambulance in this case, then you need to speak get the police involved so they can co-ordinate it

Pete

[Steve Walker]

I've recently become involved in helping with some of the instruction at my local BSAC branch. I've been using Dive Leader lecture notes 08/02 and the 2002 DL student manual. On reviewing the DL exam questions I was surprised to see questions on topics not covered under the DL course, namely questions on use of the BSAC 88 tables and air consumption calculations. Presumably these have been covered in the Sports Diver course, so why exam under the DL course?

This kind of question has cropped up before, particularly in relation to Instructor exams. Part of what I'd see as the underlying issue is that much of modern education (in the broadest sense, not just diving instruction) has become overly "modularised" . Consequently, students of any topic have become conditioned to expect everything in one neat package, whereas the more advanced diving theory exams would seem to be based (in my view quite correctly) on a more holistic learning paradigm, ie the acquisition of the knowledge for it's own sake rather than to achieve one specific objective, that is passing the exam.
IME, Encouraging diving trainees to thoroughly "read around the topic" is every bit as challenging as getting undergraduates to do the same, certainly none of my academic colleagues has found a simple way to make this paradigm shift happen.

Incidentally, weren't there plans to expand the "Interactive Learning" to include the higher dive grades? This would be quite useful to encourage a broader theory knowledgebase