the effectiveness of environmental communication with scuba divers : a case study comparing the curricula of bsac, padi, and ssi entry-level certification courses
abstract
the purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of the
environmental communications contained in novice certification course manuals. this
was accomplished by reviewing the effectiveness of these communications across three
certifying bodies, the british sub aqua club (bsac), the professional association of
diving professionals (padi) and scuba schools international (ss i), using the
framework of the elaboration likelihood model of persuasive communication (petty,
mcmichael & brannon, 1 992), and its associated message delivery styles, as a
framework for evaluation.the messages conveyed to scuba divers through each agency' s novice
certification course manual were analyzed using software-assisted content analysis. the
content analysis examined the manifest and latent content to determine the overt and
covert messages inherent within the texts. this was accomplished using a mixture of
inductive emergent category development and deductive category application. images
were also coded to indicate whether they supported or contradicted the environmental
messages espoused in the manual. all written messages were assigned codes that
indicated the message delivery style, and route to persuasion, used. once each certifying
bodies' textbook had been systematically coded, and categories i themes had been identified, a comparison of the environmental messages communicated across certifying
bodies was undertaken to determine the manuals' relative efficacies.