Job satisfaction is crucial to teachers’ well-being and performance. The Job Satisfaction Scale - Version for Teachers (ESL-VP) is a validated instrument used to assess job satisfaction among educators. However, its applicability to the Brazilian educational context requires cultural adaptation to ensure semantic, conceptual, and psychometric equivalence.

This study aimed to conduct the cross-cultural adaptation of the ESL-VP for Brazilian teachers and to assess its internal consistency.

A cross-sectional study was conducted in two phases: (1) cross-cultural adaptation, including translation, back-translation, expert panel review, and pretesting; and (2) psychometric evaluation of internal consistency. The study included teachers from basic education in the southern region of Espírito Santo, Brazil. Data collection involved administering the adapted ESL-VP and assessing internal consistency using Cronbach’s alpha and McDonald’s omega coefficients with 95% confidence intervals [95%CI].

One hundred teachers (65% female, 35% male; median [interquartile range] age of 41 [20] years participated in this study. The questionnaire items showed adequate distribution, with mean scores ranging from 3.1 to 3.8 (SD = 1.1–1.3). Internal consistency analysis demonstrated strong reliability (Cronbach’s a = 0.828 [0.730-0.904]; McDonald’s ? = 0.814 [0.707-0.895]). The "if item drop" analysis revealed that the lowest Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was observed for item 18 (“Having sufficient technical and material resources for work”, a = 0.819), while the highest was for item 5 (“Having enough time for family”, a = 0.833), indicating that removing these items would have minimal impact on the overall internal consistency of the scale.

The ESL-VP was successfully adapted to the Brazilian context, maintaining semantic and conceptual equivalence. The scale exhibited high internal consistency, supporting its use as a valid tool for assessing job satisfaction among Brazilian teachers.

This adaptation provides an essential instrument for evaluating and improving teacher satisfaction in Brazil. Future research should explore its predictive validity and potential applications in educational policy and ergonomic interventions to enhance teachers’ work conditions.