Cindy Ho, VP of Finance at Discrete Components, Inc Using $\alpha$

Cindy Ho, VP of Finance at Discrete Components, Inc.(DCI) , theorizes that the discount rate 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%) by randomly assigning five customers to each sales discount rate.An analysis of Cindy's data produced the following ANOVA table. $$\begin{array} { | r | r | r | r | r | } \hline \text { Source of Variation } & \mathbf { S S } & \mathrm { df } & \mathrm { MS } & \text { F } \\\hline \text { Treatrnent } & 5.35 & \mathbf { 3 } & 1.783333 & \\\hline \text { Error } & 177.2 & 16 & 11.075 & \\\hline \text { Total } & 182.55 & 19 & & \\\hline\end{array}$$ Using $\alpha$ = 0.01, the appropriate decision is _________.

A) reject the null hypothesis $\mu$ ₁= $\mu$ ₂= $\mu$ ₃= $\mu$ ₄
B) reject the null hypothesis $\mu$ ₁ $\neq$ $\mu$ ₂ $\neq$$\mu$ ₃ $\neq$$\mu$ ₄
C) do not reject the null hypothesis $\mu$ ₁= $\mu$ ₂= $\mu$ ₃= $\mu$ ₄
D) do not reject the null hypothesis $\mu$ ₁ $\neq$$\mu$ ₂ $\neq$$\mu$ ₃ $\neq$$\mu$ ₄
E) do nothing