Added debugger and changed code in start controller, it now uses find_or_initialize_by(params[:id])instead of just find, which returns the entry with id of 0. Error created is now ActiveModel::ForbiddenAttributesError. Doesn't move from 1 to 2.
Added and removed apprentice application table. Edited code in the start controller such that the form works and progresses. The only problem is that it keeps updating the existing record of id 1 and doesn't create a new record.

It was throwing an error when I did rake db:reset and rake db:migrate about my SNAFU 3 weeks ago when I manually deleted the apprenticeapplications table.
Edited start controller create method. Added more specificity in my find_or_initialize_by code, it kept returning the entry of id 1 but I had to add in ..initialize_by(:id params[:apprentice_forms][:id]). adding in :id params made it look for the column in the database named id and then search for a particular entry within it. Without doing that, it just returned the first id in the column.