Final answer:
With a p-value of 0.0204 and an alpha of 0.01, you should fail to reject the null hypothesis because the p-value is greater than the significance level.
Step-by-step explanation:
If you conduct the appropriate hypothesis test and obtain a p-value of 0.0204 and your significance level is α = 0.01, the correct decision would be B) Fail to reject the null hypothesis. This is because the p-value is greater than your significance level α, indicating insufficient evidence to reject the null hypothesis according to the standard hypothesis testing procedure.
On the other hand, if the p-value had been less than the significance level, the decision would be to reject the null hypothesis. For example, in a situation where the p-value is smaller than 0.01, it would suggest that there is strong evidence against the null hypothesis. However, in this case, the p-value of 0.0204 does not meet the threshold for rejection at the 1% significance level.