A mortgage lender routinely places advertisements in a local newspaper. The advertisements are of three different types: one focusing on low interest rates, one featuring low fees for first-time buyers, and one appealing to people who may want to refinance their homes. The lender would like to determine which advertisement format is most successful in attracting customers to call for more information.
a. Describe an experiment that would provide the information needed to make this determination. Be sure to consider extraneous variables, such as the day of the week that the advertisement appears in the paper, the section of the paper in which the advertisement appears, or daily fluctuations in the interest rate.
b. What role does random assignment play in your design?