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%) .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. $$\begin{array} { | c | c | c | c | c | } \hline \text { Source of Variation } & \text { SS } & \text { df } & \text { MS } & F \\\hline \text { Treatrnent } & 64.91667 & 3 & 21.63889 & 8.752809 \\\hline \text { Block } & 10.5 & 2 & 5.25 & 2.123596 \\\hline \text { Erer } & 14.83333 & 6 & 2.472222 & \\\hline \text { Total } & 90.25 & 11 & & \\\hline\end{array}$$ 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