Does higher samples and viewport mean a better quality of render? I am using evee in 2.8. What exactly does samples and viewport mean? My samples are currently set at 64 and viewport set at 16. If either of these increase does that increase the quality of my final render?
The render samples are what impacts your final render, when you render with F12 or Render > Render Image / Render > Render Animation.  As a rule of thumb, more samples mean less noise in the render. The difference may not be as obvious as in Cycles, because Eeeve is doing rasterization and not  path tracing.

Eevee render with 16 samples



Eevee render with 64 samples



Close-up 16 samples



Close-up 64 samples



The viewport samples are for the preview in the viewport, when you choose Display Render Preview.