Randomization
This was a simple randomization (without blocking) and the random allocation sequence was obtained by drawing lots with pieces of paper. Such a method is straightforward and relies on chance. Specifically, we placed pieces of paper with participant names into an opaque box, each piece of paper of equal size. After multiple shuffles, we had an experimenter randomly draw out one piece of paper at a time and place it in positions symbolizing the three groups. The randomization, allocation, intervention, and data collection were all conducted by the same research team members.