Cindy Smith, VP of Finance at Digital Components, Inc $\alpha$ = 005, the Appropriate Decision for Block Effects Is ___

Multiple Choice

Cindy Smith, VP of Finance at Digital Components, Inc.(DCI) , theorizes that the discount level offered to credit customers affects the average collection period on credit sales.Accordingly, she has designed an experiment to test her theory using four sales discount rates (0%, 2%, 4%, and 6%) .First, she classified DCI's credit customers into three categories by total assets (small, medium, and large) .Then, she randomly assigned four customers from each category to a sales discount rate.An analysis of Cindy's data yielded the following ANOVA table: Using $\alpha$ = 0.05, the appropriate decision for block effects is ___.

A) do not reject the null hypothesis $\mu$ ₁ $\neq$$\mu$ ₂ $\neq$ $\mu$ ₃
B) do not reject the null hypothesis $\mu$ ₁= $\mu$ ₂= $\mu$ ₃
C) reject the null hypothesis $\mu$ ₁ $\ge$ $\mu$ ₂ $\ge$ $\mu$ ₃
D) reject the null hypothesis $\mu$ ₁ $\le$$\mu$ ₂ $\le$ $\mu$ ₃
E) do nothing