In this study, an integrated gaming and multistage guiding approach was proposed for conducting in‐field mobile learning activities. A mobile learning system was developed based on the proposed approach. To investigate the interaction between the gaming and guiding strategies on students' learning performance and motivation, a 2 × 2 experiment was conducted on an elementary school natural science course. Four groups of students were situated in a field trip to learn with different mobile learning approaches (ie, gaming or nongaming) and guiding mechanisms (ie, multistage or single‐stage). The experimental results showed that both the gaming and multistage guiding mechanisms proposed in this study significantly enhanced the students' learning achievements. Moreover, the interaction between the two showed that the lead‐in of the gaming strategy could significantly improve the learning motivation of the students who learned with the multistage guiding mechanism; on the contrary, their learning motivation could be significantly decreased without the gaming approach, although the multistage guiding mechanism was effective. The findings imply that “gamification” could be a good approach for helping students accept learning support or tools provided in mobile learning scenarios.